THE website for Fort William's annual Mountain Festival says mountains "inspire us all in different ways" – but what can't be forgotten is that climbing the same mountains can come with a high degree of risk.
Nine people have died in Scotland's mountains this year, including three climbers who were killed in an avalanche in the Cairngorms a few days ago. Four people died in an avalanche in Glencoe in late January.
Mike Pescod is chairman of the festival organisers, the Highland Mountain Culture Association. He is also an experienced mountaineer who has been an instructor and guide in Britain and abroad since 1993.
"Anything in the mountains carries a risk," he says. "Mountaineering, climbing, walking, mountain-biking – there's a risk inherent in all of it. Managing that risk is what we do. I can only recommend to folk who are new to it to get some training."
Pescod himself has personal experience of avalanches – not once, but twice. Eight years ago, he was caught in an avalanche on Aonach Mor. "I broke my pelvis, my back, my ankle and some ribs; it took me a year to get back to full-time guiding. There were quite a few weeks in hospital and lots of recovery."
In Peru, he was buried in an avalanche. "Thankfully, the people I was with were not buried, and they managed to dig me out," he says, with understatement.
Such experiences have done little to deter him. "We know it's dangerous. We don't do it because it's dangerous – we want to do it and make sure we don't get hurt. It's a challenge we take on willingly and openly."
There is no doubting the importance of outdoor events to the Lochaber economy. The area offers more than 65 different activities in a striking landscape that ranges from the small isles to Ben Nevis, with white water rivers, sea, lochs, beaches, forest, glens, cliffs and mountains.
Pescod said: "The Fort William Mountain Festival is one of the most popular events in Scotland's outdoor adventure calendar.
"It celebrates mountain culture in all its forms and promotes the mountains as an attractive, accessible and above all enjoyable place to be. It includes a superb line-up of top climbers and explorers, mountain films, inspirational speakers and skills workshops."
Billed as a four-day mountain party, the event is "packed full of inspiration and entertainment during the best winter walking and climbing conditions of the year."
It will be staged in and around Fort William, in the heart of Lochaber, the "outdoor capital of the UK", starting this Thursday.
The festival's launch night, on Wednesday, at Nevis Range Mountain Experience, near Fort William, will begin with a torchlight descent as local outdoor athletes on skis, bike and foot weave their way down Aonach Mor.
The rest of the programme, which runs until Sunday includes a bike night, an Antarctic adventures night with Felicity Ashton and Paralympic silver medallist Karen Darke, a climbing night with mountaineer Andy Cave, a winter skills workshop and a Best of Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour film night.
Thursday will see a British Mountain Guide night, at the Nevis Centre. It should be one of the highlights of the festival.
Three British Mountain Guides – Andy Nelson, Tim Neill and Stu McAleese – will share the stage and talk about their illustrious careers.
Neill has climbed widely in the UK, Ireland and throughout the world. McAleese is one of the best UK-based alpinists.
Nelson has packed a lifetime's climbing experience into his 45 years, climbing everything from sandstone crags in his native Northumberland to Alpine north faces, via Ben Nevis and isolated mountain plateaux in Norway. He is deputy leader of the volunteer Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team, one of the busiest in the country, and is an experienced ski teacher, qualified in alpine, telemark and Nordic disciplines.
Despite having taken his climbing gear to many parts of the globe, Nelson is by no means finished. "There's still a lot of the world I haven't explored yet," he says. "But I have been really lucky. I've had just one trip to the Himalayas, but I've climbed in Canada, Norway, and the Alps, and a little bit in the Middle East as well."
How does Glencoe compare? "There are conditions in Scotland – not just at Glencoe, but the Cairngorms and Ben Nevis – that actually prepare you very well for greater ranges, and in fact you rarely go out in conditions like we get up here. In other parts of the world, you tend to wait for good weather before going out climbing. It's usually an accident if you end up in Scottish-type conditions in an Alpine region."
www.mountainfestival.co.uk
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