Last week I got a call from George, who was looking for a bit of help in working towards his Summer Mountain Leader award. I first met him about two and a half years ago when I was leading a wilderness expedition in the Scottish Highlands (sorry, I hadn’t started the blog back then) and [...]

I was running a NNAS (National Navigation Award Scheme) Bronze Award course last week, but one of the participants had to pull out a few days before. A job interview understandably took priority, so we arranged to repeat the course a week later. Due to the short notice, there wasn’t really any additional interest when [...]

I always enjoy working in the outdoors, but there is something a bit special about working on courses that are designed to develop skills and teach new techniques to those that really want to learn. It’s a great privilege to be involved in people’s development and watch them grow in confidence and understanding. I’ve spent that [...]

Yesterday, the six pupils on Oswestry School’s Adventure Education weekend split themselves between three different activities in three different places – canoeing, scrambling and hill walking. Today, we all used the same overall venue. Two of the group hooked up with an instructor each (Ali and Paul), who took them rock climbing on one of [...]

Today saw me working with three pupils from Oswestry School as part of an Adventure Education weekend. Six members of the CCF (Combined Cadet Force), were able to take advantage of their military connections and are based at Capel Curig Training Camp, giving them easy access to the mountains and rivers of Snowdonia. Today, one [...]

Each year, The Grange Therapeutic School take a group of their boys to Snowdonia for a week. Staying in a bunkhouse at the base of Snowdon itself, they spend time mountain walking, raft building, coasteering and brave it on a high ropes course. For the last three years, I have been invited to join them [...]

Today I had the great pleasure in spending the day with two great young people, looking at navigation and map work around the Long Mynd area of the Shropshire Hills. They actually live in London, but are up in Shropshire for a couple of weeks during the Summer holiday. While up this way, they’ve signed [...]

One of my sons has started to express an interest in hill waking. I suspect that it has more to do with a fascination with winter mountaineering and the thought of spending a night in a snow hole but, when I offered to take him out into Snowdonia, he jumped at the chance. So, relieved [...]

In recent weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time hill walking on my own in Scotland in preparation for my Winter Mountain Leader assessment at the end of this month. It’s great practice to be on your own as all the decisions, good or bad, are down to you alone and you enjoy (or not) [...]

I’ve spent the last two days with Vince doing a hill walking course, although this was far from normal. Vince originally contacted me back in September asking about potential dates for a 2 day hill walking course and we agreed on a mutually convenient time. Although I then advertised these dates, no one else expressed [...]