It's been a busy weekend of long days on the water in my canoe on a four start canoe leader assessment. To be honest, I should have done this a few years ago. I initially did the training course over two and a half years ago and had every intension of doing the assessment in the following six months. However, there's always other things taking … Read More »
Category Archives: Featured
Adventure Education Weekend with Oswestry School
We were fortunate with the weather this weekend as I headed into Snowdonia with a group of cadets from Oswestry School CCF. A couple of times a year, they put on an Adventure Education weekend, normally using the Army Training Camp at Capel Curig as their base for the trip. We had about 18 students in all on the weekend with 2 staff and 6 instructors … Read More »
Hill Walking Course with CCAT
Being involved in the cadet organisations opens up the possibility of running Adventurous Training courses through the military. One of those avenues is with CCAT (Cadet Centre for Adventurous Training), who run courses for senior cadets and adults out of Capel Curig and Halton Training Camps. This week, I've been at Capel Curig running a Summer Mountain Foundation which is an introductory hill walking course. We … Read More »
2 Star Paddling Week with New College Telford
I've had the privilege of spending this week with the Outdoor Education students from New College Telford. A couple of times a year, their lecturers / teachers take them on a residential trip away from the college to spend a chunk of time working on some of the more practical elements of their courses. They had students working on a variety of activities over the … Read More »
NNAS Bronze Award – Navigation Course in the Shropshire Hills
For the last two days, I've been running a NNAS Bronze Award navigation course for three keen walkers from London, Kent and Hertforshire. Each of them have an involvement with the Ramblers and want to be able to lead groups in the countryside. Although they all had different levels of experience, they each wanted to develop their skills and confidence with map work to help … Read More »
A Week of Multi Activities with Adventure +
This is now the forth Summer of Adventure +, a kids holiday club run by Ellesmere College. They get me in to supply most of the 'adventure', and use other opportunities on and off site to provide the '+'. Although the club runs from Monday to Friday, I normally just get involved with the first four days, leaving them to do something like go-karting without … Read More »
Summer Mountain Foundation with Welbeck DSFC
I was delighted to be approached by Welbeck Defence Sixth Form College back at the beginning of March about delivering an SMF (Summer Mountain Foundation) course for a group of their students. Welbeck actually brought the whole of their Lower Sixth form over to Capel Curig to spend a week in the mountains of Snowdonia. With so many students, there were a total of about … Read More »
Winter Returns For A Day In The Fannichs
Although I've been hoping for the snow to return to Scotland, I couldn't quite believe it this morning when we woke to see a white scene at all levels. Almost in celebration, we planned a Munro 'bagging' day in the Fannichs. With the group still untrained in the use of ice axes and crampons, they seemed a little nervous as we got off the minibus … Read More »
A Birthday Snow Hole Expedition
Alfie, my eldest son, often wants to experience some of the things I get up to but commitments like school keep getting in the way. However, each year for his birthday, I try to give him the chance to experience something that he really wants to do. This year his imagination was captured by the idea of snow holing. This was always going to be … Read More »
A Wintery Day on Moel Siabod
Knowing that today would need to be a shorter day on the hill, in order to allow time for traveling back to Oswestry, we decided to make Moel Siabod our target for the day. I've taken groups from the school up this particular mountain before, but never in winter conditions and not by this route. We took farm tracks to the old mine workings to the … Read More »
