What is the IMC?

Started in 1965, Invicta Mountaineering Club (IMC) was conceived as a club formed entirely from volunteers from within Scouts and Guides of Kent. As the name suggests, its role is to provide and encourage the safe participation in all aspects of mountaineering including hill walking, scrambling and wild camping. More recently the club has started to buy into other mountain activities such as canyoning, via ferrata and mountain biking and also runs joint trips with the County Climbing Team.

Due to various issues generated by changes to POR, the IMC found it could no longer legitimately carry on as a joint club and in order to continue to provide great mountaineering opportunities, it become a Kent Scout Active Support Unit in 2013. Or to put it another way - The Kent Scout Hills Team - although the IMC name remains. IMC SASU Agreement

The team aims to run three 'Have-a-go' trips every year which are open to scouts from Explorer age upwards and to leaders from all sections - and we continue to encourage participation from members of Kent Guides too. Many of our events are camping based but some have indoor accommodation, as well the occasional bothy or Youth Hostel. All our events are run in accordance with the P.O.R. of the Scout and Guide Associations and although the vast majority of club events take place in the UK hills, it does make the occasional foray abroad, often in support of other county events.

Since 2016 senior IMC members also provide formal training and assessments for Hill Walking permits on behalf of the county and we run a trip (usually in November) specifically for this purpose. This role has taken the place of the now defunct Kent Scout Mountaineering Team.

Note that the IMC is a different team from the County Climbing Team. Click the button to visit the Climbing Team website.