ABOUT AMI
I open a box labelled Cold Climbs. Inside are the photographs that illustrate this iconic book, which inspired me to so many winter adventures. As I carefully sift through the collection I come across images of Tower Ridge – extracts from ‘The Tower Ridge Rule Book’ essay spiral into my brain, Rule One in particular. I am taken back over forty years to my first ascent. The preface to the book has this description:
Cold Climbs deals with climbing of a less tangible nature, rarely predictable, often dangerous and uncomfortable, and set in an impressively hostile environment.
If that doesn’t get your juices flowing, I don’t know what will!
Here I am in the archive of the Mountain Heritage Trust (MHT) examining boxes of material recently acquired from Ken Wilson’s family. It’s a photoshoot for an article in the local paper, it feels slightly surreal. How did I get here and what other gems are in the room that might be useful to the mountaineering and climbing community, particularly mountaineering instructors?
Just over a year ago, I met with the AMI committee at the Lakeland Climbing Wall in Kendal during the KMF. Having recently become a Trustee of the MHT I am pitching the idea of using some of the material in the archive to help members with the historical side of mountaineering. I am not sure that it’s going down well as I talk to a slide of the tower at Glenmore Lodge. It is a picture of a team practising an Improvised Tragsitz lower for an original MIC course. ‘What’s a Tragsitz?’ comes the question from the floor - I begin to realise I am as much of a retired relict as the old equipment, books and magazines I am talking about!
Fast forward to now and I have recently been at the BMC Winter Lecture in Manchester doing a comparison of old and new winter gear with AMI members Sam Leary and Mick Jones. Behind that event is a list of courses and meetings where I represented the MHT after an article in the March 2024 Professional Mountaineer introduced the organisation to the wider instructional community.
Events have included a talk at the MTA Conference at Plas Y Brenin, a presence at the Women in Mountain Training event at Ullswater Outward Bound, a Lakes AMI CPD evening at the MHT Office and archive, contributions to the Mountain Training is 60 https://www.mountain-training.org/about/what-we-do/history-of-mountain-training/
For me, the most exciting has been a contribution to two RCI training courses in the North Lakes, facilitated by AMI member Esther Foster https://www.estherfoster.co.uk/ an MCI based in Keswick. She was inspired to include an hour at the MHT office in her RCI Training courses, examining material from the development of Rock Climbing, particularly between the 1920s & the 1960s. It has been great fun to work on these sessions whether examining equipment for the MHT handling collection, looking at guidebook development or having a laugh at some of the material in old climbing magazines. These, in addition to selected books, have also enabled us to look at the social changes that have taken place in climbing particularly post WWII.
For the future there have been discussions around sharing the MHT resources more widely, the possibility of short videos illustrating rock climbing or winter climbing developments. Just for now, if you are at a loose end near J40 of the M6 pop into Rheged. For the price of a pint (North Cumbria prices!), you can visit the Everest Revisited exhibition, with some fascinating artefacts and stories. Among other things at the exhibition you can see the MHT Mallory clothing replicas, It runs until 23 February 2025 (https://rheged.com/event/)
It would be good to get ideas from AMI members. If you are at all interested in developing some of the ideas or visiting MHT please contact me at monty@mountain-heritage.org
