Confused? You’re Not Alone

Ideas by Chris, words by Anne

When we chat to our clients about the different climbing and mountaineering awards and support organisations, we often encounter confusion about the awards and how they fit together. Who is qualified to do what? Where can they work? Who is supported by which organisation? And the most common mistake we come across is confusing MT with MTA. 

Photo courtesy of Tom Reader, ML training course April 2015

MTA is the Mountain Training Association, the support organisation for anyone with or working towards any of the awards administered by MT - Mountain Training. MTA members are given a discount on our CPD workshops, and on every workshop there is someone who thinks they qualify for the discount because they think they are a member of the MTA, when in reality they have registered for an award with MT. You can only be a member of the MTA if you choose to join and pay your annual subscription.

To help clear things up, Mountain Training have produced this great infographic to summarise how the awards work and interact with each other. White arrows show prerequisites, for example before you do the MIC, you have to have ML summer, MIA and ML winter. Dotted black arrows show recommended progressions.

And just to make things even clearer, we’ve put together our own chart, detailing the remit of each award and the relevant support organisation. All the awards are administered by Mountain Training apart from British Mountain Guide, which is administered by the British Mountain Guides. You can download a copy of the chart here.

Don't hesitate to give us a call or send us an email if you have any questions about any of the awards that we provide - Mountain Leader, Lowland Leader, Single Pitch Award, Climbing Wall Award. We're here to help!