meet Your Instructor: Louis
- Louis Kennedy
- Jun 8
- 5 min read
A bit about me.
I am Louis. Originally from Clapham in South London, I moved to Scotland in 2016 and founded my own guiding business Kennedy Mountaineering in 2023. I have been climbing for just over 15 years and despite my irritating mediocrity at the sport continue to enjoy everything from the beauty of the places, to the constant variety of the adventures, I love the continual learning, the problem solving and over coming daunting challenges. I want to encourage and help people into the climbing community by sharing my psych for climbing.
The sport has given me a lot, but it has also shown me both sides of the coin: the joy in the successes and the unfortunate reality of what happens when it goes wrong. That perspective underpins how I choose to guide and teach; to take responsibility for your actions and judgments, make rational calculated risks and enjoy the mountains with the reverence they deserve. My aim is to pass that on and help people build the skills and confidence they require to operate safely, and independently in the mountains.
How did you get into climbing?
I started climbing aged 13 and in many ways I think it was a natural progression for me. I had a complete inability to concentrate in the class room and loved the outdoors and adventure. It was at the time an alternative blend of adventure, challenge and risk management.
Soon after being introduced to climbing by a school teacher, I spent my school holidays in the old Arch Climbing Wall in London Bridge. It was a dimly lit, chalk filled railway arch and filled with a crowd of talented boulderers. It was welcoming, supportive, and people were incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm. I would climb until exhaustion, then sit in the mezzanine reading old climbing magazines, drawn into stories of wilder places in the mountains far beyond the railway arch. I later joined the London Climbing Centres Vauxwall Vauxsquad and enjoyed the beginning of what would be a continual learning process under the guidance of wonderful coaches, instructors and mentors.
Why did you become an instructor and choose to live in Scotland?
I was diagnosed with ADHD fairly young and was somewhat of a spaniel-esque problem to manage in the city, I was very fortunately shipped off to a boarding school in the countryside aged 10. I was sent to Windlesham House in Sussex on the South Downs, it was a place that at the time was fantastically catered for adventurous kids. The school had surrounding woodland accessible to students and maintained a bohemian ethos of adventure, creativity and acceptance. The school actively made space and encouraged us to explore our surroundings unsupervised. We spent our time climbing trees and concocting an ever evolving list of bad ideas and dangerous games. We were granted the privilege to learn the importance of managing risks early and every so often, reminded when we over stepped the line with an occasional visit to the School medical centre.
It was here at Windlesham, I met one of my childhood best mates Harry Byatt, a.k.a. Hazard. Not un-similar in character and equally energetic it was Harry and his family that first introduced me to the wonder of Scotland. I was invited to spend a week at his Granny's house near Loch Fyne in darkest Argyll on the West Coast of Scotland. I first visited around the age of 11 years old and over the years I kept returning for annual trips summer after summer. The trips were characterised by their frequent misadventures: capsized sailing boats, midges, broken oars, lobster potting, fly fishing, unexpected swims and getting lost in the woods; It was character building stuff... Harry very sadly died in a diving accident on the Isle of Zakynthos in August 2017 aged just 19 years old. I would say much of my love for exploring Scotland today is retained in the nostalgia of the childhood adventures I had with Harry. Nearly 10 years on I now find it rewarding to share Harry's ethos for adventure and his love for Scotland and to help introduce stratergies for managing risk in adventure sports to ensure people are safer in the mountains.
What are some of your most memorable climbs?
For me I love the variety, whether it's a day out on the hill on my own, out with friends or climbing with my clients. I just love being out climbing.
If I had to pick a handful though, they would be:
Climbing the Westgrät on the Salbitschijen (ED1 6B, 1000m) in July 2024. In an exhausting 22 hour car to car adventure. With detiorating weather and an impending ferry journey back to the UK this was an improbable outcome, which I think is why this was such a special day out. We left the van at 0200 and approached the route with a non committal mindset and figured that we could always bail if things going well. It was a tough day out, but we pulled it off and reached the summit shortly before sunset and suffered through the full descent to the van in the dark. Energy gels and a mid route can of coke carried us through.
Developing new Sport Climbs on the Mount Kalamos seacliff on the Greek Isle of Anafi.
In September 2024 together with Mike Twid Turner, Bert Lam, Dale Pointon and James Handley we bolted and climbed a 12 pitch route we named "Into the Blue" (7B, 6B Oblig, 12 pitches). In October 2025 I returned agaid with Mike Twid Turner, Michael Kimber, Bob Brewer and Andy Long and we bolted a second climb left of our original line the we named "Pilgrims of the Vertical" (7B, 6B+ Oblig, 11 pitches). On the last day of the trip, we climbed the route from a boat! Read more here: https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=anafi+climbing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
The wonderfully bonkers nature of Scottish Winter climbing...! However it comes about it is always a fantastic and adventurous day out. Although perhaps quite windy, cold and wet. At the top of this route my climbing partner and good friend Cam dropped his phone down the length of the route. As a result we missed the last gondola back to the Nevis Range base station, but somehow found the phone and endured a long walk home... Worth it!
Stand and Deliver V 6 on Aonach Beag, Lochaber, Scotland Following in the footsteps of the "Heroes of Telemark" climbing out of the Vemork Gorge in Rjukan, Norway. Upon topping out we visited the museum at the Vemork factory. Accompanied by Ellie, Jim and John we climbed an ice route named Bakveinen (WI4) to the Vemork Factory. The gorge forms a natural moat to the factory and was repurposed during WW2 by the Nazi's to produce heavy water in their pursuit of the atomic bomb. Their effort was foiled by a team of Norweigan commandos that impressively crossed the gorge and blew up a large part of the factory. The main building and the remnants of the destroyed building have been preserved as a simultaneously interesting museum and moving memorial to the Norweigian resistance movement.
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