Winter ML Assessment tips

I intended to put this at the end of my previous post, but better late than never ...

These are a few key tips and learning points that I took from my assessment that may be of use to people preparing for next winter. They are all personal viewpoints from my assessment and may differ form other peoples experiences - so no suing me if they don't work for you ;-)

In a nutshell, Id can sum it up as: Be prepared and be a Leader !

Read the guidance from George McEwan (Executive Office, MTS) on the MT website

In a little more depth ...

Be Winter hill fit: plenty of long days out in all weathers and types of underfoot conditions.

Navigation:

• As always a core element - keep practicing in all conditions esp. poor visibility.  
• Be comfortable with both pacing and timing, but IMO (and that of the qualified people I have spoken to) pacing is the core tool in poor visibility.  
• Be comfortable at both 1:50000 and 1:25000. I had previously assumed that 1:50K was de-rigeur for Scottish Winter, but we were asked to have both and some nav points were not on the 1:50K. If no scale is specified at the start of the day, I'd suggest asking the assessor which map he is expecting you to use and if he is non-committal be prepared to check both. I used 1:50K exclusively on expedition, but others used 1:25K.  When I looked back at our routes later, some points would definitely have been easier and more obvious with 1:25K.  1:50K just misses some of the little contour kinks and turns which your assessor probably knows intimately.
• If your reading vision is not great, it is perfectly acceptable to use 1:50K magnified to 1:25K, but be careful it is an accurate magnification and that you have the coverage. I use Anquet map software which allows me to print to a variety of scales and on A3 paper.
• BMC / Harvey 1:40000 maps are superb IMO,  but they are not used by anyone I know for training or assessment, so I would beware becoming too familiar with them.

Prepare for the technical bits well:

• Be practised, slick and confident on steep ground / ropework in a variety of scenarios and be aware of the best choices for those scenarios. Above all, be safe AND look safe !
• Make sure your own personal skills such as crampon work and ice-axe braking are up to scratch - get someone qualified to observe if possible; my cadre all know what we were doing but we had let small errors creep in.
• Have a basic lesson plan in mind for winter skills and make sure you act in role of observer as well as demonstrator, so you can see and comment on what your 'students' are doing well or wrong.

Know your shit w.r.t to avalanche awareness, safety and route choice: 

• Read, learn, and practice. 
• Get into the habit of looking at weather forecasts, making assessments and then looking at SAIS forecasts to see how you did. Read the detailed observation reports as well as the forecast.
• Observe while out and about; look for cornices, scour, slab, riming etc. Look at the snow underfoot and make 'on the hoof' assessments to double check the SAIS forecast - remember that if the weather has changed since the forecast, it may no longer be accurate. 
• Make sure you know how to do the basic 'on the hill' tests and interprete what you see, also remembering that these days, the tests are seen as a way of confirming what you already know than a 'should I  /shouldn't I' tool in their own right !

Look after your group and act like a leader: 

• Keep checking they are all there (!), in reasonable spirits, warm enough etc. look for signs of anything being amiss. I think a buddy system and a tail-end charlie work well but they are aids to help you, they don't absolve you of your responsibility, so make sure you eyeball all your group regularly.
• Although this wasn't really an option on my assessment, move around your group rather than always be at the front if conditions allow, let someone else lead if the way is straightforward.
• Ensure you give them time to eat and drink - and make sure they do so.
• Weather permitting, try and engage with your group on topics of interest.
• Be prepared to be quite firm and directive if conditions dictate it.
• Think about route choice in terms of what is best for your group rather than what is easiest for you e.g. straight up and down between peaks and colls may be easier for nav but with a tired group in strong winds may not be the best choice for them.

This last element  - in my assessment at least - was more strongly emphasised than in Summer ML, and formed a major part of our group de-brief.