HILL SKILLS

Scrambling occupies the ground between walking and rock-climbing. However, what constitutes a rock-climb opposed to a scramble is dependent on each person’s perception and experience. Different skills and rope techniques can be used for scrambling. Each offers different levels of security and is always a trade-off between safety and efficiency of movement. And this is where scrambling becomes complicated.

When rock-climbing, just one technique is used with the rope, known as pitched climbing – meaning that only one person is climbing at a time and a belay plate is used to belay the climber. However, when scrambling, many more techniques can be used, and a day’s scrambling involves many decisions in what technique to use.

In my opinion, the most important skill to develop when venturing into scrambling is judgement. Judgment is required to know which technique is appropriate for the terrain, the skill level of the team, and the conditions of the route. I’ll be referring this idea of judgement for all levels of scrambling in this article.

Grade ½

Grade 1 scrambles include the likes of Striding Edge, Sharp Edge and Crib Goch – exposed and often thrilling routes, but which are technically ’easy’ enough that they are usually tackled without the