Ten top tips for your Mountain Leader Assessment

These are my top tips for ML and not an infinite list, but for all passionate outdoor individuals it is a great award. Be it professionally or just to give you the confidence to go out there. As an outdoor professional I was over the moon passing my ML. Below I'll give you my top tips to be successful on your ML assessment.

1. Take a sharpie! Sounds silly and I hadn't used it much but a sharpie will help you so much (except in the rain) to keep on track where you are. Every time I hit an obvious feature, a little dot where that was saved me so much time. You don't have to find where you where, where you travelled, and then where you are now. A dot every so often will make your relocations slick, efficient, and far less stressful - it just doesn't work in the rain.

2. Comfortable in poor conditions. We would love to have good weather for our ML but with it in Snowdonia, Lakes and Cairngorms predominantly (not only places) - having 5 days of good weather is rare. Make sure your kit is up to scratch and so are you. Even to the point of being efficient in putting your tent up if the conditions are against you. I wish I'd invested more in better boots.

3. Slim down your kit. Do you need everything or can you slim it down? Whilst being able to cope with conditions. Do you need lots of extra clothes? I used a wet kit, dry kit mantra meaning I could save weight on sleeping bag, be warm, and have dry kit in the evening whilst sleeping/in my tent. Where you can lose weight I would. Even if you have a camel back. Does it need to be full? Is 1L plenty?

4. Have a luxury. Goes against the above but to keep your moral high take a luxury on exped. Mine was an aero press and a twirl and made me much happier.

5. Nav is everything, but there is much more as well. Nav is obviously the big component you need to be good at and slick at. So make sure you are happy spending most of your time off a path, therefore, being comfortable in interpreting contours is key. However, nav is not the only assessment point. Environment is becoming a bigger component - make sure you know what you are looking at, leadership is vital - you can take groups out, show the assessors you are a good leader. Also little things; do you know history of land rights, how to interpret synoptic maps, and the ML syllabus?

6. Time everything whether it is your leg or not. It'll help you relocate and if you have a sharpie you can time from your last known feature/dot. Again take the pressure off yourself.

7. Look around at the scenery but also features and contours, that's going to help you navigate and dictate the shape of the land your in. Don't just focus on your map.

8. Don't stress if you get it wrong. If you get a relocation wrong, or a end point slightly wrong, and whether you realise there and then or half way through the next persons leg - tell your assessor! They want to see you correct yourself rather than accept the error. Make the mistake, tell the assessor and crack on.

9. Rope work - this is easier for some than others. Be slick with your rope work but don't over complicate anything. If you want it can all be done using overhand knots. Be good at the rope work but not at the detriment of your group management. All well and good getting them into a rope loop etc. but make sure they are doing it in a safe location, ropes are tested but group management is just as important.

10. 1:50,000 - just remember everything is bigger! Features and contour shapes are big features not tiny knolls. Remember small undulations aren't on a 1:50. You are looking for things that are big!

These are my top tips and are not an exhaustive list. If you want to do any steep ground days or practice days get in touch for events happening near you. I'm also happy to answer any questions :)