Mountaincraft and Leadership
A slim booklet produced to help mountain leader candidates 44 years ago evolved into an outdoors bible.
So ubiquitous was Mountaincraft and Leadership among the hillwalking community that it became knows simply by its author’s surname: Langmuir.
Langmuir was for many years the reference tome when it came to knowledge of how to make your way round Britain’s mountains: a comprehensive reference book covering the whole gamut of skills from navigation to nutrition; avalanches to access; river crossings to roping for steep ground.
Eric Langmuir, the former head of Glenmore Lodge and long-time mountain rescuer, died in 2005, shortly after a revised third edition of his book was published.
Now, a new, fourth edition is available, published jointly by Mountain Training England and Mountain Training Scotland, the new names for the organisations once known as the mountain leader training boards.
The book still bears Eric Langmuir’s name but, just as with the previous editions, it’s a collaborative work, and the list of contributors reads like a roll-call of UK mountain experts, including Allen and Blair Fyffe, Mal Creasey, Cath Flitcroft, Mike Pinder and Pete Davis.
It does, however, seem a little quirky to be reviewing a new book by a man who died eight years ago.
George Manley has provided the updated illustrations for the fourth edition and the food and nutrition chapter contains much new content by Louise Sutton of Leeds Metropolitan University.
The new edition, traditionalists will be glad to learn, opens with the same three-word exclamation: navigation is fun! It’s a sentiment with which a mountain leader candidate on a gale-hit rainy fell-side in the middle of the night probably won’t agree, but the point Langmuir and his successors make is that knowledge and skills will enhance a hillwalker’s enjoyment of the mountain experience.
Large sections of the third edition remain mostly unchanged, but the new version has up-to-date advice and information on, for instance, the rapidly developing and now common use of GPS devices in the outdoors.
Some of the changes are subtle, others made to make more logical reading.
The chapter on mountain rescue is combined with information on incident management, with the important proviso still there that self-reliance should be the aim for all hill-goers. Sensibly, complicated ground-to-air visual signals that very few would be likely to remember have been removed and the method for making a stretcher out of ropes is also a thing of the past.
The new edition of Langmuir still deals with, as well as navigation; hillwalking, including the legal necessities of leading parties, choosing clothing and footwear; campcraft and expeditions; and access and conservation, including the rights enjoyed in different parts of the UK.
Security on steep ground, including rope techniques and knots; river crossings and mountain weather are also covered comprehensively.
The first-aid chapter’s content will be familiar to anyone who has undertaken an outdoors emergency-aid course, and gives information on improvising treatments when remote and the full plethora of kit is not available.
Hypothermia and heat injuries are also covered, along with basic requirements such as how much water is needed on a typical hill outing.
Winter skills, cold injuries and information on avalanches, as well as techniques for snow shelters round off a comprehensive list of contents.
Mountaincraft and Leadership is, as its title indicates, aimed primarily at people leading others on the hills of the UK, but is packed with information and advice for anyone who wants to enjoy their hillwalking fully.
Reading this book won’t make you an expert or transform you instantly into a mountain leader, but putting into practice the distillation of many experts’ knowledge will help you along that path.
It’s not the sort of book to stuff into your rucksack to use as a reference on the hills. At more than 450 pages it’s too weighty and bulky for that.
Read it through; take in as much as possible; put it into practice on the mountain; and keep it as a reference book for all those bits you’ve forgotten.
It could just make you into a better hillwalker and make you capable of dealing with whatever the great British outdoors may throw at you.
Mountaincraft and Leadership by Eric Langmuir.
Published by Mountain Training England and Mountain Training Scotland.
Softback, £18.99
