authorities concerned as well as the leader of a party. The two former tend to accept the word of the potential instructor concerning his capabilities. But unless they are expert mountaineers themselves they are in no position to judge. If a man says he has climbed extensively and over a long period, this may be so; but it is no proof of his competency. He may have climbed always behind a leaderm, always in good weather; never being confronted by an emergency. The layman may think a man an expert if he has been climbing for two years; the expert himself knows that some men climb for ten years and remain as careless as the worst novice. It has, of recent years, become a guarantee of competence in certain quarters to cite alpine expeditions. Yet many people who have climbed in the Alps couldn't be trusted to lead an easy gully on Ben Nevis.

The difficulties inherent in a situation where a potential instructor is assessed by people who are not themselves experts in that field are legion. Almost inevitably, if a man knows he is not very experienced, he will consider himself experienced enough to take a party on the hill or for the job in hand. The same kind of self-deception is often practised by people climbing for fun. Not 'I am competent' but 'I am competent enough', allowing the discrepancy. Such an attitude doesn't take emergencies into account, when it may prove fatal. A man who goes climbing with this attitude of mind may be relying on experts in the party in the last resort. This is placing too much responsibility on others. Such an occasion arises when the leader of a group employs guides, thus acknowledging the latter's superior ability, but insists that they shall go out in weather for guides themselves consider too bad. Such people are not above reminding the guide that he is employed. This is not a situation where the man who pays the piper calls the tune; the guide, not the client, he is the man who judges the weather and conditions. But some guides are wholly dependent on guiding for their living, and they are sometimes placed in a position where they feel they must compromise on safety regulations, otherwise the client, convinced he is right and his guide obstinate, over-cautious or just plain lazy, will take his custom to a climber who is more malleable and is pretty sure to ask less money, for guiding, like all professions, has it charlatans. Anyone can call himself a guide in Britain (not on the Continent), can practise, can undercut the legitimate guide. He needs no plate, no certificate, no qualifications. Few people know there are only about twenty true guides in the United Kingdom. Any man or woman can announce on television or radio, in newspapers, or by his personal advertisment, that he is an expert and qualified guide, and - to the public -he is.

To return to the problem of safety as it affects leaders of parties of young people in the hills: the crux of the matter must be the difficulty experienced by the layman in assessing the capabilities of a potential leader. In this lies the great difference between those courses and expeditions run by specialised mountaineering centres already employing experts on their staff, and other organisations whose 'experts' may be little better than novices themselves.

The larger mountain centres such as the Outward Board Mountain Schools, the Central Council of Physical Recreation's Centre at Capel Curig, and its Scottish counterpart at Glenmore Lodge in the Cairngorms, all these stress the importance of their mountaineering instructors being allowed to instruct only after careful assessment by recognised experts in that field. For instance, at Capel Curig Sir John Hunt and Dr. Charles Evans are on the Committee and involved in the selection of the permanent staff.

On the whole these mountain centres place more reliance on the general mountaineering competency of a potential instructor than on his rock-climbing standard. In general their ideas of competency agree: a knowledge of mountaineering in all its aspects: navigation, mountain camping, snow and ice work, rock-climbing, First Aid and mountain rescue. In this they tend to follow roughly the qualifications for a mountain guide's certificate. It is not enough to be a brilliant rock-climber. Probably more than one centre has turned down a young tiger because he hadn't the necessary teaching ability, nor the wide experience called for. There is a tendency among young men to think that an ability to lead excessively severe rock-climbs is a passport to professional mountaineering. It might be for the man who could find enough films in Continue to page 5