2-Day Winter Mountaineering Skills Course in the Cairngorms

Please bring the following with you. Please avoid cotton clothing:

• Winter mountaineering boots - crampon compatible
• Waterproof trousers
• Wool socks
• Base layer
• Gloves – plus spares
• Lightweight fleece
• Warm hat – plus spare
• Fleece or soft-shell jacket
• Spare fleece / warm top
• Trousers – synthetic that dry quickly
• Lunch, snacks and liquid
• Waterproof jacket with hood
• If you have your own - ice axe and crampons

As part of planning our adventures we follow the mountain weather forecasts closely.

If the guides decide that the weather represents an unacceptable level of risk an alternative destination will be decided upon and communicated.

There are 282 mountains in Scotland over 914m / 3000ft. We are in these mountains year-round exploring and guiding clients to summits in wild and remote locations.

These are boots designed specifically for mountaineering in snow, rock and ice conditions.

They are also crampon-compatible which is required for our winter mountaineering trips. If you are not sure please just contact us or the adventuro team via the live chat. We can also provide you with winter mountaineering boots if required and requested in advance.

If you are interested in a custom adventure for you and your group, there is flexibility on age limits. Please message the adventuro team via the live chat, who will be happy to facilitate this arrangement.

Along with our Public Liability insurance, we are continually building on our qualifications. As a team, we have the following qualifications, so you can be sure you are in the right hands for whatever you are doing with us: Mountain Leader (Winter); Mountain Leader (Summer); ASI SUP Instructor Trainer/Assessor; SLSGB Trainer/Assessor; Single Pitch Award (rock climbing); Trail Cycle Leader (mountain biking); SLSGB Surf Lifeguard; SLSGB Coasteering Safety and Rescue; ASI SUP Instructor Level 3; ASI Surf Instructor Level 2; HSE First Aid Certificate; Scottish Field Archery Association Leader; Neural Linguistic Programming Practitioner Certificate; PDA in Youth Work; Mountain Instructor Award (training).

We hold an Adventure Activity License. This allows participants under the age of 18 to take part in an activity with us without parental/guardian supervision. Please note, a parent or guardian will be required to sign a declaration form before the activity. 

For coasteering, The National Coasteering Charter (NCC) is an advisory membership organisation providing coasteering companies and guides with support and advice as well as the benchmark for safety for this activity. Our guides are highly experienced and run Coasteering Guide Workshops for other providers of coasteering using the NCC guides framework. You can’t find better-skilled or more experienced guides in the area. We are the people the guides come to learn from.

ASI [Academy of Surf Instructors] is the world's leading professional membership organisation and international governing body for instructors, coaches and schools in the outdoor recreation industry for surfing, stand up paddle boarding and body boarding. We are an accredited ASI school and instructor training centre, this means our instructors are of the highest possible professional standards. ASI creates and sets the international standards and continuously investigates and researches industry practices and liaises with the industry itself and government departments around the world, to ensure we are at the leading edge for the provision of education, accreditation, standards and safe practices, and with respect and harmony with nature.

All our adventures take place in the mountains and ocean so a level of fitness is required. We also like to make our adventures accessible to a wide variety of clients. 

For all our mountain adventures we use the following grade system:

• Easy: Easier treks, mostly on well-defined paths, with no special difficulties.
• Easy/Moderate: Slightly harder treks. Paths may be indistinct, navigation skills required.
• Moderate: Moderate mountaineering. Terrain will be steep, map reading skills essential. This grade includes the most straightforward and popular Mountains over 3000 feet / 914 meters [Munros].
• Challenging: Harder mountaineering. Can include longer treks and pathless sections calling for more careful navigation. There may be scree and minor scrambling. This grade is quite broad and includes the bulk of Mountains over 3000 feet / 914 meters [Munros].
• Strenuous: Tough by mountaineering standards; these routes can be very arduous or include trickier scrambling. This grade includes the hardest or most strenuous Mountains over 3000 feet / 914 meters [Munros].

In the ocean, clients should be confident in cold water and full immersion – and be able to swim 15m.

All our adventures are continually risk assessed as part of our planning and professional procedures. This assessment is also integrated into our insurance process.

As a responsible and ethical adventure company we are committed to the wild and natural environment we work in. We strive to put the planet first in everything we do.

We recognise that a love for our beautiful wild places demands active participation in the fight to save them. This is of course a dynamic process and we are always striving to minimise our impact in, educate our clients on and improve our contribution towards, our natural environment. 

We align as partners with adventuro, who are a net-zero company from day-one, partnering with Rewilding Britain to protect our playground.