Newsletter no.36 August 1998
FEATURESTHE EARLY YEARS OF THE MCofSBy Sandy Cousins, 1995 Having been asked, or persuaded, to record the origin and early days of our Mountaineering Council, I can only give a personal history. Unfortunately the well kept files and Minutes of early days have not been kept, a tradition which continued for some time, thus I must rely on memory, with help from others. We were preceded by the Association of Scottish Climbing Clubs. For several years volunteers from clubs got together to pursue matters of interest to climbers in Scotland. They ran winter hillwalking courses and liaised with the Mountain Rescue Committee for Scotland. Much of their work concerned conservation of mountain areas. As with our MCofS, documentation for the ASCC has vanished in the mist. While I can remember several of the good people of ASCC and those in at the founding of the MCofS, I feel it would be invidious to name some if I cannot give due credit to all. I hope that those concerned will forgive me. We only started it and trusted others to follow, and do it better. In the late 1960's, Bill Murray, then a member of the Countryside Commission for Scotland, saw the need for a strong conservation (not preservation) body to further the public interest, perhaps best expressed by the informed outdoor fraternity, and so the Scottish Countryside Activities Council was formed. As membership covered many outdoor recreation interests, such as caravaning, horseriding, rambling and mountaineering, it gave information ,advice and comment to the CCS which was itself in its infancy. Then in 1968, that farce of lies, intrigue and incompetence by officials and public bodies, the "Coruisk Affair" landed flapping at our feet like a grassed salmon. I became aware that bodies like the Government, Scottish Sports Council, CCS, Scottish Landowners Federation and the media needed some recognised body of expertise on mountaineering matters such as safety, conservation and ethos. Indeed we needed a National Body for the sport. Other sports had Governing Bodies (as they had rules and competitions), but we should have none of that. The ASCC (while the efforts of sincere volunteers were appreciated) was insufficient. At the 1968 AGM of the ASCC, I proposed that it be wound up and reformed as the MCofS, in due course to be the National Body for Scotland, in partnership with the British Mountaineering Council in England. The BMC would represent the UK internationally, and on internal UK matters would defer to and support the other three countries. Each club climber would pay the same subscription, provision to be made for non-club members, representations to be sought on and from other organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Mountain Leader Training Board, Mountain Rescue Committee for Scotland etc. and generally to be the voice for the interests of mountaineering in Scotland. This outline was unanimously agreed and a steering committee formed. I drafted a Constitution and it was knocked into shape, surviving, with some modification, today. We widened our remit in various direction and so in 1970 our MCofS was constituted - I think in May in Perth. We tried hard to get committee members from as wide a spread of climbers as possible and had, I recall, climbers from Aberdeen, Inverness, Fife, Edinburgh, Perth, Glasgow and elsewhere. I had a system of mountaineering contacts in the various climbing areas who reported about quarterly on anything of interest coming up, so we could try to be ahead of the game. These were busy times in our lives with work, families and climbing, but all contributed various talents to establishing the Council. We had some fifty clubs at the start and much work contacting other organisations. I maintain we were as busy then as the executive is now. There is more work now, but more people to share it. We were learning and making a fair job of it. As I recall, the Honorary Secretary represented the MCofS to BMC, BMC Technical Committee, the SSC, MRCofS, SMLTB, SCAC, SLF, Scottish National Ski Council, and other representations included Mountain Bothies Association, Forestry Commission, NIMC and NTS. We ran for about 3 years, building up authority and experience, than advised the SSC that we should be named as the National Body for Mountaineering in Scotland. We realised that though we felt our sport was best served by keeping a low profile, we needed the official recognition and possible financial assistance. At that time the SSC felt the SMLTB was, or should be, the representative body, This shows how they did not understand our sport. I explained the ethos of climbing and how the excellent SMLTB work was part of the link with education, but that the MCofS was the core, and the body outside our sport to turn to. After being unanimously supported by the then Scottish Standing Conference of Sport (all the Governing Bodies), now the Scottish Sports Association, of which we were a member, we were fully recognised as the National Body by the SSC. Throughout our first 8 years when I was Honorary Secretary, we had an excellent partnership with the BMC, recently restated within a memorandum of agreement. Most of our work concerned access and conservation. At that time, with the apparent risk of education doing its own thing regarding hillwalking, I found my seat on the SMLTB useful to try to bring the MCofS view into training and safety. To link education and professional use of the mountains with individual and club climbers we started MCofS Training Weekends at Glenmore Lodge. In this we had the enthusiastic help of Eric Langmuir and later Fred Harper. Most on the Executive Committee were new to such things and some climbers viewed us disdainfully as bureaucrats and mountaineering politicians, failing to realise these volunteer amateurs were giving their time to conserve climbing for everyone. Personally I didn't consider our Executive as a pyramid of officers and other ranks, but rather as a rugby team of various talents aimed at winning for our sport. The Council has always been very conscious of the interests and welfare of those who live and work in our countryside. We tried to balance a desire in some places for mountain wilderness with the aspirations of local folk and the National interest. At the AGM of the SMC in the autumn last year a proposal to erect a wind turbine at the CIC hut on Ben Nevis to help power a dry toilet as well as reduce the number of gas canisters needed in the future was discussed. The SMC are opening up discussion on this issue to a wider audience and they (and the MCofS) would like hear the views of members, be it in favour or against, or even if there are other ideas not yet mooted. Here are the two sides to the argument : A WIND TURBINE by Gerry Peet, SMC Huts Convenor The first question is, do hut users want a proper, internally accessible toilet system or do they accept the status quo? The original external wooden hutted Elsan was not a good system with ground cover being poor, problems with burial in snow cover and being generally environmentally poor. Our proposals (the Huts Sub Committee - HSC) are for a well proven Clivus Multrum composting system. This has two critical requirements:
There are at present two schemes for power generation: The wind generator is the preference of the H.S.C. but this is meeting with some opposition within the club, mainly on the grounds of visual intrusion. However, the height of the mast is similar to a small urban street light and with the rotor turning at higher speeds than the large wind farm turbines it is not highly visible. A similar unit can be seen at Corrour station and at Glen Affric Youth hostel. Another unit runs outside Proven Engineering at Kilmarnock. The Hydro-Electric scheme requires a flow rate of 6 litres/sec and a static head of 30 metres which would mean a small weir about 2-3 ft high some 120 metres upstream with connection from weir to turbine via 3" dia. plastic pipe which would be mostly unburied.
Solar power is not a viable option. It must be emphasised that our proposals are for toilets accessible only to hut users. Public requirements along the Allt a' Mhuillin are not our responsibility. The Clivus is a simple, reliable, low maintenance system and we have used a National Trust unit of similar size in Gloucestershire as our control example. That has been running for 4.5 years with no problems and it took 4 years from start up before 2 barrowloads of inert compost were removed, which supports claims that more than 90% of the composting pile goes up the exhaust stack. It is completely odourless.
CIC HUT DEVELOPMENT - THE CASE AGAINST by Robin Campbell and Colin Grant We understand that plans are in place to site a large wind-powered generator (about 25-30ft) high beside the Clark Hut, with the object of providing electric power to heat and ventilate a composting toilet, and that the Hut is to be extended northwards to accommodate this convenience. Since the total cost of the project will be about £50,000, it is necessary that it should be discussed and approved by the Club as a whole and it is for this reason (and because we are opposed to the project) that we have introduced our motion. There are several good reasons for opposing these planned 'improvements'. The most compelling is the erection of a 25ft wind tower on such an important mountain which would make it impossible for the Club to object in good faith to other unsightly developments on mountains e.g. windfarms. It should not be forgotten that we are the trustees of Percy Unna's Principles and therefore have a duty to adhere to them ourselves. A second reason is that these plans would add to what is already an unacceptable blot on the landscape of Ben Nevis: our two-years' supply of lurid orange gas cylinders is visible from everywhere in the high corrie including the summit. Thirdly, £50,000 would be better spent on acquiring a new Hut elsewhere. Fourthly, the proposals take a further step away from the primitive experience of living in a mountain hut. Gas heating, electric light, drying room, toilet and (who knows?) shower and telephone will turn the Hut into an extension of our comfortable homes high on Ben Nevis. Is this an appropriate goal for Hut management? We suggest that it is not. It will be argued by those who favour the development that we are obliged to install a toilet because of the unacceptable quantity of human faeces around the Hut. However, as this is not to be a public convenience, it will have no effect on any faeces deposited by campers and passers-by. Overall, the occupants of the Hut are only a small fraction of the total traffic up the Allt a' Mhuillin. The impact of the hut occupants can be dealt with by less intrusive means than the proposed wind turbine. At present the Hut squeezes 18 climbers into a space which originally accommodated only 8. Moreover, these 18 places are normally fully booked for every night of February and March, with 5-night lets being offered to visiting clubs. A policy of reduction of bed-spaces and of let duration would greatly reduce the quantity of faeces produced and would have the important additional benefit of reducing damage to the fabric of the Hut by condensation. We suggest the bedspaces should be reduced and lets limited to a maximum of 2 nights. If the residue of faeces continues to present a problem, then low technology measures can be adopted to deal with it. We urge members to vote to reject this development plan. In the event that it is rejected, then we recommend that an explicit policy of management for the Hut should be debated. For this reason we present a second, contingent motion. In our view there is a good case for simplifying the management of the Hut. At any rate, we think the Club's 'footprint' on Ben Nevis should be reduced immediately and that Members should clarify what it is that they want from their huts and direct the Huts Sub-Committee accordingly.
** Any correspondence about the issues raised here will be published in
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