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All photo's are Copyright of Scott Swalling or the tagged Photographer. (Background photo Scott Swalling Photography).

About Me:

24Hr MTBike racer and general bike rider, climber and mountaineer. Good coffee drinker and cake eater (any cake, seriously, don't leave your cake laying around). Also, I like to try new things that challenge me.

Monday 26 May 2008

Summer Mountain Leader Training – Weekend 2, Day 1

The second of the 3 weekend training course with Adventure Unlimited would see everyone converge of Eskdale in The Lake District. Many would have a quick and easy drive from up around the various regions of the North.

However, two of us would experience the Bank Holiday carnage of the M6. Giles coming from South Wales and I from Surrey. Both leaving at around 1400 to avoid the traffic, I arrived somewhere around 2045 and Giles, sometime later. I arrived with a lust for blood of BMW drivers, caravan owners and those morons that insist on sitting in the outside lane at 60 MPH with no vehicle inside them.......WTF?. I know this is stereotyping, but if the boot fits.

Anyway, I arrived, struck camp fast and headed for the pub to find Toby and Nikki and several pints of Westons Cider and an Apple and Black Currant crumble that would be my dinner. Hmmm? Giles arrived, then Andy and Ant, a bit of a catch-up and then it was back to the campsite. Getting blinded by the head torch of either Heather or Michelle (we didn’t realise it was them at the time and I might have mumbled something about night vision, blinding and fecking) and identifying that Nikki walks like a BMW driver. :-p

We quickly caught up with Heather and Michelle, had a quiet laugh about the 3 girls squishing into one two man tent, a Quasar at that. Then it was off to bed with Toby bivvying about 6 feet from my tent.

Saturday morning came earlier than expected for Toby and I thanks to a kid wailing, a of mumble "quieten it with a brick" might have been heard from my tent, but either way Toby and I were awake at around 0500, Nikki as well thanks to a very clear blue sky.

We would all wake up and get organised to head off to start the training course, only to learn that Heather had locked her keys in the boot of her car. The routine ribbing ensued, a call to the RAC and Ian one of our instructors was made and we waited for the RAC. They arrived quickly and we were back on track.

We met Ian and Stuart at the meeting point split in to our teams, got briefed on what would happen this weekend and where we might camp and off we set.

We continued to complete micro navigational tasks as we headed for a camping destination, Green Hole, situated under Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. Discussions on wild camping and group management we had and I am sure everyone in our group, learnt something new.

We arrived at Green Hole, struck camp and lapped up the view, had a quick brief of what to expect on the night nav that we were setting out to do that night and then we had time to ourselves.

At about 1700, our camp became a beehive of activity, we cooked, ate and then sorted our rucksacks ready for the night nav. At roughly 1930, we set off, I took the first leg, straight up and onto the col between Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. Then Andy took us to a random point on Bowfell, which was well found. We then headed to Bowfell summit and watched the sun set (it was beautiful) and chatted about various things, including Giles and ladies underwear, again.


Next Giles had his leg of nav and did a superb job, putting us on the path nr Angle Tarn, then Toby landed us on Ore Gap. This would be our last success.

It was now dark and Stuart gave us a tricky nav task, and as a group, we messed it up. We hit the false point, being the first of two high points we wanted the second of. I was a little unsure that we had hit the right point and had stopped several times, but the group kept pushing on. Arriving at the false point, Giles mentioned he thought we were here, pointing at false point on map. Whilst the others took quick bearing on the next point that Stuart had given us and headed off. Giles and I discussed it, but the group was off again.

It would turn out that Giles was correct, and we made what Stuart referred to as a parallel error, in taking our bearing to the next point, from the false point we would run parallel to where we needed to be.

Eventually, Stuart showed us our error as we didn’t look like unf**king the f**k-up. Stuart naved us to the point we were meant to be at and then let us continue t nav off the hill and back to camp. We turned in for the night.

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