Alpine Break

After 7 weeks of intensive coursework studying biology, human science and law I have got through the second part of my quest to become an Accompagnateur en Moyenne Montagne, the French equivalent of an International Mountain Leader.

The course was very interesting in parts and I now know a lot more about the legal issues and responsibilities of taking people on the hill, and a lot about how joints and muscles work and how they get damaged. There was a lot about how to motivate people to attain goals as well, not sure how much use that will be with people who already know that they want to get out walking or riding.

As it was all in French it was quite intense, my French was pretty good anyway but by the end of the course it had improved notably simply from being immersed in it all day every day. My head did hurt a bit.

The probatoire is over and the great news is that I passed. This means that I have been accepted onto the course to become an Accompagnateur en Moyenne Montagne, this is the same as the International Mountain Leader course in the UK. Over here the selection criteria is a bit harder.

The probatoire lasted two full days. Day one started out with a long hike, 27km long with 1800m of height gain, with a rucksack weighing 10kg before adding in food, water and any clothing you might use on the hike. There was a time limit of 6 hours for the hike. Immediately after the hike is a scrambling test. This test involves scrambling up and down around 400m of very steep, technical, rocky terrain without showing any hesitation, without slipping and using your hands as little as possible. This section was graded by a jury with marks out of 20 and any less than 8 eliminating you. The potential for a fall on the section we were on was a good 600m at least. At least it was dry. Over 200 people started out in the morning, the group was trimmed down to 82 after eliminations from the hike and the scramble.

The following day started with orienteering. There were five points to find and a time limit of two hours, I got through in one hour twenty which I was happy with. Out of the 82 who started the orienteering only 26 made it in the 2 hour period. The next stage was an oral exa., Questions covered flora, fauna, geography, geology, weather, and history of the area that you have chosen to exercise your activity in. I was quite worried about this stage as I haven’t previously had a great interest in flora and fauna so had some revision to do before the exam. It went well though and at the end of the day I passed all of the stages, and am now on the course.