Worry over avalanche service end

Climbers use the forecasts as an addition to their own assessments

Climbers have voiced concerns that an avalanche risk assessment service has ended for the season despite conditions remaining potentially dangerous.

The sportscotland Avalanche Information Service (SAIS), which provides alerts to mountaineers, finished on Sunday.

Messages from climbers and mountaineers expressing worry that it has been wound-up too soon have been posted on the UKClimbing.com internet forum.

Sportscotland said it took expert advice on when the service should end.

It also insisted that it was continuing to monitor the avalanche risk on the hills.

This is not a monetary issue at all. The money is ring fenced and sportcotland cannot keep things running where there is no statistical evidence for us to do that Tim Walker Glenmore Lodge

Many climbers use the SAIS forecasts as important additional information to their own assessments of the conditions before setting off on Glencoe, Creag Meadaigh, the south and north Cairngorms and Lochaber.

The service runs from mid-December until Easter every year - but with large amounts of snow remaining on many Scottish mountains, some users of the UKClimbing.com forum questioned whether the closure date should be more flexible, and whether the season had come to an end for financial reasons.

Writing on the forum, climber Jim Fraser said: "The ending of this coverage is premature because we are now entering the 'wet' season when all the really dangerous ones happen and the people with no proper winter experience or training are starting to go out on the hill again.

"A weekly assessment of the snow that remains, combined with some appropriate publicity, might be an appropriate public safety tool."

Tim Walker, of Glenmore Lodge National Outdoor Training Centre in Cairngorms National Park and one of those responsible for the service, said it was run according to statistical information and the assessment of a panel of experts.

Last avalanche

They include world-renowned climber, mountaineering equipment inventor and author Hamish MacInnes, three professors from the University of Edinburgh and an expert from Zurich, in Switzerland.

Mr Walker said: "There has to be a start and got to be a finish.

"Over our 20 years, the service has evolved in such a way to cover the climbing and skiing seasons.

"These seasons, not just in this country but in other countries like the US, are constantly changing and we look very carefully over the years what incidents and accidents there have been."

The last avalanche incident in late April was recorded in 1952, he said.

Mr Walker added: "This is not a monetary issue at all. The money is ring fenced and sportcotland cannot keep things running where there is no statistical evidence for us to do that."

Staff based at Glenmore Lodge will continue to monitor conditions and Mr Walker said generic warnings would be issued when risks were identified.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version