A year and a half. That’s how long I’ve been mountaineering and that’s how long I’ve been in the University of Stirling Mountaineering Club (USMC), and what a year and a half it’s been. From being entirely unknown to the club and having no idea what a Munro was, to being awarded the unofficial certificate for best character/skill development in the club, I feel it’s somewhat fair to say I’ve made some decent progress – both in the sport and personally.
When I joined last September in my first year of university, I was absolutely terrified – of the members, of the committee, of the hills, of the crags, and of how utterly enthralled I was and my strange gut feeling that this was what I should be doing; even though I had no idea what to do or how to do it, and didn’t really know anyone to help me.
So, clearly 2024 me thought that running for a committee position for a club I’d just joined for a sport I’d never done was an absolutely wonderful idea, and one that couldn’t go wrong at all – how right I was. That decision to just take the plunge into the deep end and trust myself was one of the best ones I’ve ever made. With mountaineering I’ve never cared how scared I was, it has always been easy to just go for it.
I’ve built so many relationships over the last (nearly) couple of years, I think it’s quite funny how scared I was of the committee and people in the club when I first joined, because now I think of so many of them as my closest friends, and the people I trust most (which is lucky considering it’s my life in their hands, literally). I genuinely think I’ve learned something from every single person in the club in one way or another, and I thank all of you for that; but I think more than anything the mountains have taught me things about myself that I didn’t know I needed to learn.
You tend to think a lot when the thing you dedicate the most of your time to involves a great deal of quiet, isolation from society, and nothing but the mountain itself (that tends to be the case when you walk or climb hundreds of metres vertically).
My favourite thing is when I realise how high I’ve climbed, and how far away from civilisation I am, I remember having so much pent up stress before climbing Ben Nevis last year, and when I reached a point on the track of being entirely alone, and all I could hear was the river and the birds, I cried. And then I cried again when I noticed that I was higher than the clouds (in a literal sense).
I owe so much to mountaineering, and winning the silly little ceilidh award for best character/skill development also made me cry (I cry a lot, I know), but this time because I felt so seen. Most of the committee work I’ve done over the last couple of years has been a great deal of behind-the-scenes stuff, so I didn’t think anyone really noticed me, I also just didn’t think I was very noticeable. To know that people think of me enough to notice my progress, both in terms of my skill level and my personal development, means more than I think they’ll ever know.
Sometimes in the week I do stop and think that if I spoke to Amelia from September 2024, she would probably faint, probably cry, and most certainly not believe me. I had never been sporty, I joined an extreme sport, got onto committee, climbed actual mountains, started climbing, learned to abseil, and now lead climb and walk 30km days and am on committee next year for the third year in a row – that’s bonkers.
Even after I graduate in another two years (heaven knows where I’ll be by then), I will always be grateful to this university mountaineering club, for giving me some of the greatest experiences, people, skills, and confidence that I could have ever asked for. I truly believe that everything happens for a reason, and stumbling across the letters ‘USMC’ when browsing for a society to join was certainly that.
Feature Image Credits: Dan Swaffield (USMC Member)
