For the last couple of years now, I have spent 2 weeks of the Summer working at Ellesmere College on their Adventure + holiday programme which is open to children up to 14 years of age. A number of the children on this week’s course have done Adventure + before, so we were looking to build some progression into the programme.

Today we started off with a trip to Trevor Rocks, near Llangollen in North Wales, for some Rock Climbing. One or two had been here with me before but, for most, it was their first visit or even their first time climbing on real rock.

We arrived to discover another group at the crag with Matt Craig of Gateway Outdoors, based in Shrewsbury. However, it wasn’t a problem to work around each other. The weather, on the other hand, was more of a problem as it started to rain heavily as we finished off our warm up bouldering session and I set up the ropes for the climbs. This made the rock quite slippery to start with, making the climbs harder than they would normally be. However, I was impressed by the perseverance of many of the group that overcame the difficulties.

After a couple of climbs each, I set up an abseil for those that were feeling brave. I always make it clear that no one is forced to do something they don’t want to do, and a few were quite quick to take the escape option! Those that did have a go at the abseil were understandably nervous, but seemed to have a great time once they got over the edge and certainly felt as though they had achieved something significant.