Want to go further and faster in the mountains? Read on to see how you could go from UK hills to alpine summits with the help of Montane athlete Becky Coles…
While many women enjoy hillwalking, climbing and mountaineering in the UK in a leisure capacity, it’s a sad fact that women make up only a fraction of those qualifying as Mountain Guides and Mountaineering Instructors, and also a small percentage of teams going on exploratory expeditions overseas. However, one of the most positive trends we have seen in recent years has been the rise of women-only courses, events and guided groups, with participants stressing how important the supportive atmosphere of all-women groups and instructors/guides is and how much of a confidence boost it can give them.
Your mentor Becky Coles at work in North Wales
With this in mind, we’ve teamed up with Montane to create a new initiative to encourage our female readers to take their mountaineering skills and knowledge to the next level. The Montane Women’s Mountaineering Mentorship Programme aims to help two female Trek & Mountain readers to progress from UK hillwalking and scrambling days to classic mountaineering routes in the Alps, under the expert guidance of Montane athlete and one of Britain’s leading mountaineers, Becky Coles.
The Programme
The two women chosen for the first intake of the programme will receive a combination of one-on-one time with Becky to discuss their aims and aspirations, and develop an action plan and goals, and two days on the hill; a winter day in the Scottish Highlands, and a summer day in North Wales. By learning (or refreshing) winter skills and learning alpine ropework, the aim is to build enough confidence for the participants be able to plan their first climbing trips to the Alps.
HOW TO APPLY
To apply to join the programme, just email us at the address highlighted below and tell us a bit about yourself. Don’t worry, there are no wrong or right answers, we just want to find out a bit about your experience and your aspirations so that we can choose two readers that we think are well-matched to work together with Becky, and would benefit most from the mentorship and training she will be providing.
Things we’d like to know (a couple of sentences on each will be ideal):
Tell us a bit about your experience so far? (For example, how long have you enjoyed going into the hills, what sorts of routes have you done, do you have some winter experience?)
Tell us what you aspire to be able to do? (e.g. lead a hard scrambling route or easy climbing route, summit Munros in winter, climb classic alpine routes)
Tell us how you think you’d benefit from the mentoring programme?
And that’s it! We’ll need to hear from you by 30th December, and the first hill day will be in January 2024.
Becky leading an expedition in Mongolia