I have PASSED my Mountain Leader Assessment !!

24-26.5.14
Walking with; Ed (assessor) and Ads (other candidate)

  I'VE DONE IT !! Eighteen months ago I undertook my Mountain Leader training and realised that I had a lot to learn to take me from being a competent, experienced walker to a true Mountain Leader . The last year and a half have been a real journey in terms of personal and professional development, the refinement of old skills and the learning of new ones and there were times when the attainment of the qualification seemed a long way away. However, over the two May bank holidays I have taken my assessment with Thornbridge Outdoors, and having spent an incredibly sunny three days in the Dark Peak and an incredibly soggy three days in Snowdonia I am now incredibly proud to say I am a BMC accredited Mountain Leader!
   The three days in the Peaks saw us undertake micro-navigation on Bleaklow, saw one of our group drop out after day one, saw us undertake a navigation and leadership day on the Snake Pass side of Kinder and a rope work and navigation day above Grindsbrook Clough. The Snowdonian part of the assessment was a 2 night expedition leg which saw us micro navigate by day and night the areas around Cnicht, Llyn Yr Adar and Llyn Edno. We shared legs, navigated on different scaled maps and described the flora and fauna around us. We were given different scenarios to deal with and presented with different situations that we might face in the mountains whilst leading a group.....and, at the end of it all, the wet tent and soaked kit were forgotten when I heard the magic words "You've passed......". So now, onwards and upwards and hopefully this will be a genuinely life changing moment! There are almost no photos as I was far too busy concentrating on where I was, what I was looking at and where I was going!

Bremex Mountaineering Nav weekend

15/16.3.14
Walking with; Bremex Mountaineering Club

In 1963 Hugh Freeman set up the Brent Mountain Expedition training scheme with the purpose of providing low cost training for adventurous activities. The club ran continuously educating generations of outdoors folk until 1994 when it became an independent charity and began to run peer-to-peer skills sessions covering a variety of subject areas across a wide range of the mountainous areas of Britain http://www.bremex.org.uk/. Non-members can attend a weekend for a very reasonable £10 taster fee and it was on this basis that I'd decided to join the group for a weekend of navigation practice on and around the Kinder Plateau.
  The activities were all small group based and peer led and tried to cover as many different bases as possible. We used different scales, led legs in pairs and as individuals, worked on relocation strategies, navved "blind" trying to improve our "map memories" and micro-navved from insignificant boulder to barely existent stream junction. The facilitators were excellent and tried to ensure any specific areas of skills we were interested in were covered. As someone who spends much of time walking alone I was unsure how I would adjust to the "club" mentality but it was refreshing and stimulating to meet like minded people and speak to other ML trainees as well as benefiting from the experience of those already qualified or with much greater experience.
  I camped at Coopers campsite at the head of Edale and conveniently close to "Ye Olde Nag's Head". I should have known better, my early season camping expeditions haven't always been the most successful http://www.comewalkwithmeuk.co.uk/2013/04/a-wet-wild-and-windy-lakeland-trip.html and sure enough the wind did it's worst on Saturday night but my Wild Country Hoolie more than stood up to the test. So a weekend of sharing skills, swapping tall tales over pints and meeting like minded people, couldn't have asked for more and I shall be looking into joining the club as an associate member. I would highly recommend the set up and suggest people check out the website and see if the tasters are of interest to them!

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