Welcome to Mountain Aid

We have just learned that Davy Pearson has sadly passed away. Those of you who have been active hillwalkers for many years may recall that Davy Pearson had an accident on the Etive Slabs in July 1986. Although a climber, Davy was actually just photographing other climbers and was not intending to go climbing himself. Davy suffered severe head injuries in the accident and was airlifted to hospital.

It was Davy's accident that triggered Gordon Pierson into starting Boots Across Scotland. Gordon intended to raise funds to help Davy, but the fundraising event was so successful that "Boots" was born.

Mountain Aid is run by some of the people who were involved with "Boots" many years ago, and we know that many people who support us were also "Boots" supporters in the 80s and 90s. As Mountain Aid has the same goals as Boots did, and is run by some of the ex Boots committee, we felt it appropriate to report on Davy's passing on our website.

As an open and honest organisation, we would like to advise our supporters that we have received an official complaint regarding Mountain Aid and its operation. This complaint, made formally to ourselves and OSCR, was made by Mr Gordon Pierson, a former Trustee of the now-defunct Boots Across Scotland. Many of the current Mountain Aid committee members were committee members of "Boots" during its successful years, but left as the charity began to implode.

When we received the complaint, we notified OSCR ourselves as we wanted to remain transparent to all. We have nothing to hide.

Mr Pierson’s complaint alleges that we are claiming that "Mountain Aid is the new Boots". However as all our supporters will appreciate, we have never claimed to be the "new Boots". We established Mountain Aid, starting out with no money and no supporters, when it was obvious that "Boots" was in terminal decline.

It came as no surprise to us that OSCR have dismissed the complaint, and they have passed it back to ourselves to handle as an internal matter. We have repeated an earlier offer made to Mr Pierson to discuss his concerns, however he has made it clear to us that he “may try to contact Boots supporters to alert them to the matter”. As an open and honest organisation, we want to keep our supporters informed of the true facts.

The committee members and trustees of Mountain Aid are extremely proud of the work we are doing in promoting mountain safety. We will endeavour to continue this hard work through the dedication of our committee of volunteers.

Finally, if you were a Boots Across Scotland supporter, Mountain Aid would be delighted to hear from you!

Thank you to everyone who came along to Stirling yesterday for our Mountain Safety Day. It was a wet and miserable October day outside, but inside and outside we had a whole host of outdoor organisations and well-known "outdoor personalities", and we hope that everyone who came along found the day to be worthwhile.

As always we value feedback, so if you have any comments - good or bad - about the day then please get in touch. It cost us a lot of money to host the event, so we need to be sure it's good value for money.

Cameron McNeish very kindly drew the raffle winners at the end of the event. As expected most of the winners had already left, but we will be in touch with all the winners.

Thank you also to those of you who have submitted entries into our challenging quizzes, we will be selecting winners from the correct entries at the end of the week.

Thank you once again for helping to make the day as successful as we think it was - please let us know if you agree with us!

From everyone at Mountain Aid.

The evening got off to a great start with a fabulous sunset. Vivid orange faing into deep red, illuminating the Perthshire countryside. Our Midsummer Night's Dram supporters began to arrive and were welcomed with hot soup and a "goodie bag" of nibbles to keep their hunger at bay during the ascent of Schiehallion.

Mountain Aid people had previously illuminated the upper sections of the route with glowsticks, providing an eerie yet welcoming guide as the sky darkened. Higher up the mountain unfortunately the mist began to descend and the upper slopes looked like any other Scottish hill in summer :-)

At the summit our supporters and Mountain Aid "staff" awaited sunrise, hoping that the cloud would lift, but sadly it did not. However that did not prevent our supporters enjoying canape, Buck's Fizz ("Puck's Fizz")  and a wee dram.

Our supporters then descended back to Braes of Foss and were welcomed with tea and coffee and the obligatory "roll and sausage" served by Jim and Jean.

Whilst it was disappointing to not see a fabulous sunrise, this is Scotland after all and Scottish summers are not renowned for their reliability. However we hope that everyone who took part had a great time, and experienced something a wee bit different. We'd like to thank everyone who took part for their superb support, and we look forward to meeting you on a hill sometime very soon.

Our accounts for year-end 2011 have now been approved by OSCR, and are available for download from our website as per our desire to be an open and honest organisation.