Staying at JSMTC Dundonnell puts you right at the base of the famous An Teallach mountain, with the path approaching from the north starting about 100m from the centre. It would seem almost rude not to make an ascent of this glorious mountain at some point during the week. After starting on the main path, we drifted to the south a little to follow the river … Read More »
Category Archives: Hill Walking
Cul Mor in the Cloud
Each year Ellesmere College CCF aim to take a group of cadets up to the Scottish Highlands for a week of mountain walking in the snow. Unfortunately, this winter had been particularly poor for snow conditions, and we travelled for almost 10 hours up to Dundonnell JSMTC (Joint Service Mountain Training Centre) in glorious sunshine yesterday. Today was our first venture out into the mountains, and … Read More »
Hill Walking in the Berwyns
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 George was a member of the group. Since then, he's … Read More »
NNAS Navigation Around Church Stretton
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 tried to advertise the new dates. So it has … Read More »
NNAS Bronze Award in Shropshire
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 last 2 days with Sles and Julie whohave both been … Read More »
A Scramble Up Tryfan with Oswestry School
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 the big multi-pitch routes on the east face of Tryfan. … Read More »
Y Garn with Oswestry School
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 member of the party had a 3 Star Open Canoe Assessment, … Read More »
Snowdon with The Grange School
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 for their day of mountain walking which has involved an … Read More »
Navigation on the Long Mynd
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 up to do a couple of courses with the Adventure … Read More »
First Walk on the Glyders
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 to see the fine weather was still holding, we headed … Read More »
