BMC Hill Walking Essentials DVD

There's a new instructional DVD out from the British Mounaineering Council called Hill Walking Essentials and, as you might well have guessed, aimed squarely at hill and mountain walkers.

It follows in the footsteps of the excellent Winter Essentials and Alpine Essentials DVDs and has been together by the BMC jointly with The Mountaineering Council of Scotland and Mountain Leader Training England.


It uses a similar two-pronged format as its predecessors by combining specific technical chapters covering the details of topics like navigation, mountain rescue, scrambling, clothing and equipment and weather and more, with a couple of narrative-based stories following a couple planning and walking routes in the Lake District and Scottish Highlands.

As with the earlier DVDs, the nicely filmed narrative sections are very watchable, but still full of useful information particularly as it's related directly to specific routes - the Fairfield Horseshoe and the CMD Arete route onto Ben Nevis. So you get to see the route-planning process illustrated with maps, BMC ones obviously, and understand some of the factors that walkers need to be aware of in the context of an actual route.

It's all quite gentle and atmospheric and nicely filmed, though there's an unintentionally hilarious section early in the CMB episode when the couple of clearly being midged senseless, but stoically manage to avoid any mention of the little blighters. Not in the script I guess...

Technical Chapters

The story bits keep things watchable and add a bit of inspiration, but the real meat of the information is in the 11 technical chapters which are all viewable separately. These are very well done using the same couple who feature in the main video and extremely thorough with some excellent detailed technical information.

Navigation is very well covered, for example, but there are also chapters on essentials like scrambling covering basic techniques, grading systems and so on and using the Aonach Eagach as a dramatic example of a scrambling route.

It's all very thorough, professional and still extremely watchable, which is half the battle.

Verdict

Another excellent technical DVD from the BMC stable. It's packed with essential information, but still manages to stay extremely watchable. It's a brilliant resource for anyone who's just beginning hill walking, but even experienced mountain walkers will still benefit from some of the technical hints and tips.

Hill Walking Essentials retails for £15.50 plus postage and packing or £13.50 for BMC and MCofS members. You can buy online and find more information at www.bmcshop.co.uk.