Interview With Morag Skelton

“I met other people my age, and they were all really into climbing. They kept asking if I wanted to go, so I was like: OK, let’s go climbing. I remember one of my first routes was a VS [Very Severe] multi-pitch,” she laughs. “I was quite pumped and couldn’t move, so my friend just pulled me up!” “The system at Glenmore was that you did jobs like housekeeping or dishwashing, but you could apply for a scheme that meant you did training and skill courses for free.

I did a five-day climbing course, and I basically ditched cycling after that. I just went climbing, climbing, climbing.” Shortly after falling in love with climbing, Morag met her now husband, Jamie, a climber too. She became further immersed in the world of rock as they climbed almost every day together, ultimately deciding to pursue her passion as a career.

“I did my single-pitch award and then only two years later I did my MCI training. But it wasn’t until four years later that I did my assessment.” The training itself – predominantly accessed by hearing people – presented challenges that Morag hadn’t anticipated. “It was a lot of listening, maybe 50% listening,” she says. “When I listen, I have to lip-read the whole time and I don’t have time to look down and take notes, or I will miss things really easily. So, at the end of the day, I had to go to my bedroom and write everything down, so I didn’t get any rest time. I was so tired. I feel a bit stupid now that I didn’t ask for a note-taker. After the training, I just thought, well, it’s going to be really, really hard to do the assessment.” Plagued by feelings of self-doubt, Morag put her plans on hold. The Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor qualification is the highest level of certification for summer outdoor instructing and includes all aspects of summer rock climbing, coaching of lead climbing, and scrambling. The assessment takes place over five days and includes a simulated teaching day with two clients.

Bolstered by friends and other women in mountain training careers, Morag took the plunge, arranging for some small adaptations to her assessment that accommodated her deafness, including meeting with the facilitators beforehand to discuss how best to communicate. She qualified as an MCI in August 2023. Since then, she’s turned her attention to the future; normalising deaf awareness in the outdoors and outdoor training and fostering a more accessible climbing community for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.

“I just feel like we need to do more work. Climbing walls are a good starting point, but we need more support in walls too,” she says. “Not many deaf people have high-paying jobs, so my worry is that many won’t be able to afford courses. Then if the guide doesn’t sign, they might need to hire an interpreter too. Finding an interpreter who is comfortable scrambling or climbing then narrows it down even more. We need to be thinking about that.”

“Of course, it’s still really early days, but I would love to do a Continuing Professional Development course in deaf awareness for outdoor instructors too – for anyone that wants to be able to communicate with deaf people in climbing and walking. That’s one of my dreams.”

Morag’s work is bridging a gap for deaf people in the outdoors, with her drive to facilitate change and education. Soon after the navigation weekend, she guided another deaf client on Skye using BSL.“It was my first time guiding a deaf client 1:1. It’s another dream I’ve had for a while and I definitely want to do more,” she smiles. “She really enjoyed herself and it was amazing to be able to communicate in sign language to each other the entire time – a very rare sight to see on the Cuillin Ridge!” “I think now my aim is to encourage more people from the deaf community to believe that it’s possible. A lot of deaf people may not think that they can go scrambling or climbing, but that comes with awareness from both the deaf and hearing communities.”