Winter 2024-25 season report
16.12.25The 2024–25 Winter Mountain Leader season was one of the most operationally difficult on record. Unstable weather, rapid freeze-thaw cycles, and increasingly thin, inconsistent snow cover created substantial challenges for course delivery across all Scottish winter venues. While early winter showed promise, conditions deteriorated sharply from mid-January onward, leading to restricted terrain options, limited usable snowpack, and ultimately widespread cancellations late in the season.
Despite these constraints, providers successfully ran 15 courses (10 trainings, five assessments) and five reassessments, though 10 further courses were cancelled due to lack of appropriate winter conditions. A total of 82 candidates completed training and 31 completed assessment, with female participation continuing its long-term upward trend. Pass rates were unusually high, partly because nearly all the March assessments were cancelled.
For the first time since the Winter Mountain Leader qualification was created in 1965, no course managed an overnight snowhole. Hard, thin, or unstable snowpack, combined with persistent mild spells, made snow holing universally unviable. Course directors and their staff instead employed a range of alternative expedition strategies, such as extended journeys involving ‘emergency shelter’ stops, and extended night navigation blocks, to maintain scheme integrity whilst managing safety.
Conditions varied significantly between Highland mountain regions, with the Cairngorms frequently holding the most usable snow but also experiencing rapid thaws, storm-force winds, and limited runout safety. Winter Mountain Leader course directors and their staff demonstrated considerable adaptability, often travelling long distances between venues and restructuring programmes at short notice to meet environmental constraints.
Across the season, only one incident was reported, highlighting the inherent risk of operating on marginal or mixed terrain with poor runouts. Staff continued to prioritise conservative decision-making in line with evolving winter hazards.
The season reinforced several themes: the need for highly flexible scheduling, close communication between providers and Mountain Training Scotland, rapid decision-making informed by real-time weather and avalanche information (thank you SAIS and Met Office), and a willingness to adapt long-standing expedition models to increasingly dynamic winters. Climate-driven changes to snowpack reliability are accelerating, raising important long-term questions about the future structure of the Winter Mountain Leader qualification.
Looking ahead, Mountain Training Scotland intends to continue monitoring snowhole use, support adaptive delivery models, strengthen information sharing, and reassess how the qualification best prepares leaders for the evolving realities of Scottish winters.
