Edinburgh JMCS: about the club

The Edinburgh JMCS is an active climbing and mountaineering club, based mainly in and around Edinburgh, although we have members throughout the UK, and abroad. Our main purpose is to encourage mountaineering activities, in particular, by arranging meets and providing access to huts - see below for some general information, and the huts and meets pages for more details.

Members' activities centre around climbing, mountaineering and outdoor activities in general, and include:

  • rock climbing - both traditional and sport
  • winter climbing
  • hill walking
  • fell-running
  • skiing - mainly cross-country and ski-touring
  • mountain biking
  • canoing and sea-kayaking

The club is affiliated to Mountaineering Scotland (formerly known as 'Mountaineering Council of Scotland').

There is some more general information about the club here on this page, and more details are scattered around the rest of the site - see the 'web site plan' below for a sort of index of where to look for things.

We also have a Facebook page (and a Facebook photo-montage page - this doesn't work on a mobile phone), where you can see some of the things that members have been up to recently.

New members

New members are welcome. To find out more about the club (including the annual subscription), and how to join, see the membership or FAQ pages, or email the .
If you are thinking of joining, the best way to find out about us is to come along and meet us! Again, see the 'membership' page for how to do that.

Meets

We organise a midweek climbing meet each Wednesday evening throughout the year. During the summer months we visit the local (and not so local) crags, and in the winter we go to the local climbing walls (on both Mondays and Wednesdays).
If the weather isn't good enough to go outdoors, or in the winter, members can typically be found at the EICA near Ratho on Monday or Wednesday evenings (or sometimes Alien Rock 1 but less often than we used to go).

We also have regular weekend meets to all parts of the UK, throughout the year.

In addition to the organised meets, members regularly visit most of the other climbing venues in the UK, and destinations abroad, for summer and winter activities. For example, many members visit the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Dolomites, Norway, France, Spain etc., and further afield.
Sports climbing at 'sun rock' (and fine wine) destinations is also remarkably popular.
For more of a flavour of these trips , see the members' trip reports.

Club huts

JMCS huts
The club has two huts in the highlands:

  • The Cabin, in Balgowan, between Newtonmore and Laggan (near Aviemore);
  • The Smiddy, in Dundonnell, near Ullapool.

These provide valuable accommodation in these areas for mountaineering and other activities. They are available to be booked by members, and can also be booked by non-members (and by non-mountaineers!) - see the huts page for more information.

SMC huts
JMCS members have access to the five SMC huts scattered throughout Scotland. The SMC considers the JMCS (all sections) to be a 'kindred club'. Specifically, this means that JMCS members can contact an SMC hut custodian directly, as individuals, to make a booking without going through the club secretary, or waiting for an official meet of the club to take place.
In addition, JMCS members can purchase an annual 'SMC Season Ticket', which gives access to all the SMC huts for the duration of the year without any further payment.

Other huts
The club has reciprocal rights arrangements with the Fell and Rock and Oread clubs, giving JMCS members access to these clubs' huts (the Fell and Rock club obviously has a large number of huts in the Lake District, and two in Scotland, while the Oread has huts in both North Wales and Derbyshire).


Web site plan

Below is a summary of the other main pages on this site.
The main links below are at the top of all the web site pages - there are also subsidiary links (linking together closely related material) near the top of the left column of some pages, e.g., this one (or just below the header if viewing on a mobile phone).


Email addresses:

  •    for any queries about joining (from potential new members);
  •    for other queries about the club;
  •    for any queries or comments about the web site.