Mountain skills 1 course

BarryD

The basic difference that is/was intended to be between 'Mountain Skills' and 'Mountain Leader' standards is that the Mountain Skills is personal training - how to essentially look after yourself on the hills. Whereas Mountain Leader are the skills required to take responsibility for other people. Both are/ were intended to cover club type hill walking, where the individuals are just going out for their own pleasure. There are professional mountaineering qualifications for those who wish to make a living out of it.

Like all things, matters get blurred over time and in Ireland the Mountain Leader standard has been used by outdoor centres and the like as a standard for staff bringing groups out hillwalking etc. The professional qualifications are/ were seen as overkill and too onerous.

At Mountain Skills level though, the emphasis is/was on personal skills. The first aid requirement is odd and sits a bit uncomfortably with this idea. I think it has come about partly because the MS level itself has become blurred and is being used as a 'qualification', therefore first aid knowledge is seen as a useful skill. But primarily I think it's down to that blurring between personal responsibility for oneself and a general responsibility to others.

In other words, the MS standard equips the individual hobby walker with the basic skills to look after themselves but what happens if when out on a walk with friends, someone has a mishap? Somebody has to intervene to help just as an ordinary Joe citizen would when walking down the street and seeing someone take ill/ have an accident. The individual is then pushed into or takes on a 'leadership' or intervention role and this is the basic premise of the Rescue & Emergency Care programme.

However the first aid requirement still sits uncomfortably with the MS standard, since there's no particular obligation on the part of the MS holder to intervene, it could just as well be someone else in the party who has first aid or REC training or is a nurse/ doctor/ paramedic etc. The other person's injury or illness relates to everyone in the party, not just the person who has completed a MS training and assessment.

I say is/was above, since although I used to be heavily involved in these schemes, it's a good few years ago and thinking changes about qualifications.

hmmm

BarryD wrote: »

The individual is then pushed into or takes on a 'leadership' or intervention role and this is the basic premise of the Rescue & Emergency Care programme.

I agree with everything you've said. Having the requirement for 16 hours First Aid training puts the MS qualified person in an even worse position, because they could now be expected to step up when part of a group, even though the qualification is nominally supposed to be for them alone - an ML-lite so to speak.

If the 16 hours requirement came about because someone argued that a MS skills person may have to assume a group leadership role, I think the qualification is heading in the wrong direction.

BarryD

I can see your point and it has a certain validity. You could argue though that every person should do basic first aid training and be in a position to offer first aid. Though Rescue & Emergency Care is a little more involved as typically you can't phone and expect an ambulance to arrive in x minutes, when you're out on the hills. So in that sense the Rescue & Emergency Care type first aid is a personal skill for the hills.

But I suspect that's not why it's there in the MS. It's over 20 years since I was involved in the scheme but I'm fairly sure that it wasn't originally part of the MS assessment. It was there for Mountain Leader courses in the early 1990s alright.

Reality at end of the day is that there is an outdoor pursuits industry in Ireland and these 'qualifications' are used as part of the training courses and validation for instructors.

There's others who look in on boards here who are more currently involved - maybe they can give the rationale.

FrostyJack

hmmm wrote: »

I agree with everything you've said. Having the requirement for 16 hours First Aid training puts the MS qualified person in an even worse position, because they could now be expected to step up when part of a group, even though the qualification is nominally supposed to be for them alone - an ML-lite so to speak.

If the 16 hours requirement came about because someone argued that a MS skills person may have to assume a group leadership role, I think the qualification is heading in the wrong direction.

There is no requirement to take leadership after a 16 hour course as there isn't much you can do. Keep them warm, call for help and maybe CPR if necessary. If you are in a group and you don't want to do that when someone goes down then fair enough. I think most people wouldn't stand by. If someone has a pneumohemothorax or requires intubation, 16 hours training won't cover it and I doubt you would have the gear on you if it happened. Everyone should have basic first aid training and on the mountain when the HSE can't reach you for hours it is even more important. I imagine this is why it is included. It like the way most companies require a minimum amount of OFA's per head count.

BarryD

I think 'Hmms' point is along the lines that, take driving a car - it's a personal skill and everyone these days must do so many lessons etc. But it's not a requirement of the driving test that you have an ordinary basic first aid cert (regardless if that's a good idea). The driving test & standard is of your driving skills and doesn't extend to rendering first aid. That's a separate issue.

So the argument is that this should apply to the Mountain Skills course whose primary rationale is personal skills:

http://www.mountaineering.ie/TrainingAndSafety/ClubTrainingAndMountainSkills/MountainSkillsTraining/default.aspx

"The Mountain Skills (MS) training course provides a general introduction to hillwalking in Ireland and the basics of mountain navigation. Offering a solid foundation for gaining personal mountaineering proficiency, Mountain Skills training teaches the necessary skills in mountain safety, navigation techniques, knowledge of hazards, and personal equipment, so that a person finishing the course may be in a position to safely, and competently, take to the hills. Mountain Skills training and assessment also provide foundation training for those who wish to progress to further leadership qualifications, such as the Mountain Leader (ML)."

It's the last sentence probably that is the rationale for the REC course and cert.

hmmm

FrostyJack wrote: »

Everyone should have basic first aid training and on the mountain when the HSE can't reach you for hours it is even more important.

Basic yes - 1 hour max should be loads. I'm not about to give myself CPR, so why would I need it for MS which is supposed to be about individual skills and not training for leading a group? I feel MS is perhaps heading towards ML-lite which it really shouldn't be.

FrostyJack

hmmm wrote: »

Basic yes - 1 hour max should be loads. I'm not about to give myself CPR, so why would I need it for MS which is supposed to be about individual skills and not training for leading a group? I feel MS is perhaps heading towards ML-lite which it really shouldn't be.

What do you think you would learn in 1 hour? How to put a bandaid on? I understand where you are coming from with the cpr on yourself obviously if you go solo as this is how I hike most of the time but knowing the skills, like how to stop an arterial bleed, signs of hypothermia etc. I pack an IFAK (individual first aid kit) for example, should some one with medical training come across me injured. If Latin or Irish was part of the curriculum I would agree, but everyone should want to learn first aid, it isn't something to be seen as a curse. For self development if nothing else.

BarryD wrote:

It's the last sentence probably that is the rationale for the REC course and cert.

I agree somewhat but I think it is part of MSA because it is a skill you need. If anything it shortens MS1 and MS2 so they can be done over a weekend. If you had to add medical training to them ( though we did cover some of it) it would take away from the important skills like map reading, compass bearing etc.

BarryD

As Alun said above - if you just want the Mountain Skills knowledge, then do the two training courses and forget about the assessment. The way I'd read it, is that the Mountain Skills assessment is de facto, a sort of a pre entry system for the next higher awards inc Mountain Leader.

Oddly, back in the early 1980s, the Mountain Leader course was the main course for this sort of thing and ran over 5 weekends. The first two weekends were usually swamped with club walkers etc, by ML3 numbers had halved and by ML5, numbers were down to a handful. It was recognised that most people starting out had relatively little interest in leading others on the hills, so the first two weekends of the ML course were more or less split off and became the Mountain Skills course. There's been some refinement of the MS course since but broadly it still covers the course content that people came for back on the old ML1 and ML2.

So there's a touch of history repeating itself with the above.