Peak Mountaineering
The climbing blog of Paul Lewis
Archive for June, 2010
June 27, 2010 at 11:13 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
This weekend I’ve been running two days of training for Leeds Mountaineering Club. Funding for the sessions came from the BMC and this is one of several similar courses Peak Mountaineering has run in the last couple of years. On Saturday I ran an Introductory Climbing Skills Day at Stanage and on Sunday an Intermediate Climbing Skills Day for more experienced members at Burbage North.
The weather over the 2 days was blistering and the groups were great fun – recipe for a really enjoyable weekend! Saturdays group focussed mainly on protection placement and belay building then Sundays group covered some revision of these skills before moving on to look at lead climbing skills (using ‘ghost’ rope back ups). Of course lots of other bits of info were shared during each day and the days were run as flexibly as possible to account for different needs. It is always brilliant to be out with such like minded people. Many thanks to all the participants and I hope you found the sessions useful.
While we were sunning it up at Stanage, Al was sweating around the trails on a private guided mountain bike day. Tina, Matt, Dave and Max are all returning customers who can’t get enough Peak MTB action (who can blame them!). Al took them on one of his uber link ups from Hayfield, via Edale, Rushup Edge and eventually, 5 litres of water per person later…….back to the pub in Hayfield to rehydrate in a completely different way! Nice one Al.
June 24, 2010 at 9:11 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
This week I’ve been running a residential in the Lake District with a local school. We base ourselves in the lovely west Cumbria location of Nether Wasdale, which offers a great playground of activities on the doorstep. This is a regular fixture on the Peak Mountaineering calendar and I always look forward to it. Along with staff Andy, Louise, Alison, Lisa, Larry and Emma we’ve had a couple of large groups of children who’ve done a range of activities. The weather has been really good all week and we’ve had shorts and shades on most of the time.
A crisis was narrowly averted on Wednesday when we had to make special arrangements to view the England game. Luckily it’s the sort of rural community where anything is possible if you talk to the right people. A few conversations in the pub and villager David kindly offered us the use of his lounge for the match. It was the best atmosphere in the world with adults and kids enjoying the victory…..who needs outdoor activities!?
June 21, 2010 at 7:09 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
I’ve run a number of courses for the Air Training Corps in the past and this weekend I was running a site-specific climbing wall course for a group of officers at Nescliffe training base. Over 2 days we looked at all the key skills they need to run safe sessions with groups as well as ways to deal with the variety of things that can go wrong.
A very sunny weekend, a brilliant group and fantastic hospitality meant the course was bound to go well. Nescliffe now has a new group of instructors that can use the climbing tower and mobile wall and I have an even greater respect for the time and effort they put in to their work. Many thanks to you all.
While I was enjoying the hospitality down south Craig was running an introductory climbing session in the Peak District. He met up with 8 adults and children from London who were keen to try gritstone climbing for the first time. By all accounts they had a great time and I hope they may go on to do more in the future.
Finally, while all that was going on we had a number of orienteering sessions running for a local school. The children had a great time weaving their way around a challenging course……shame the adults couldn’t keep up! Thanks to the staff, children and parents for a fun day. See you all again in September.
June 19, 2010 at 6:05 am · Filed under peak mountaineering
I work as a Technical Advisor for a variety of commercial companies and educational organisations. The role varies according to the organisations needs but usually involves advice on safe practices, training and assessing staff members, preparing organisations for assessments and a host of other related tasks. It is a part of my work that I really enjoy and on Friday I spent the day working with one of my clients to organise a number of monitoring visits. Over the next few months various sites and activities will be visited and the operations procedures and quality of provision will be reviewed and reported upon.
June 17, 2010 at 11:01 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
I’ve written before about my involvement with the Department for International Development’s expedition programme. Over three years they have funded many young people to undertake projects in a range of developing countries. This week I spent 4 days in Leeds and Manchester interviewing potential candidates and, as usual, I had a great time.
I don’t often spend 4 days in a row stuck in conference rooms but the stimulating discussion and chance to meet such inspiring young people more than makes up for it. I even got the chance to stay in a rather nice hotel, which makes a very pleasant change from festering climbing huts and tents!
June 6, 2010 at 10:23 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
Today I’ve been in Snowdonia on a scrambling day with returning clients Marie and Andy. With the day dawning bright and clear we decided to go high and tackle one of my favourite Snowdonia grade 3’s – Chasm Face.
The route needs a fair bit of effort to reach as it sits high on the side of Glyder Fach, but the awesome situation and excellent quality scrambling make it well worth the walk. Several technical sections lead to open scrambly slabs – a great line. Once at the top we headed over to Bristly Ridge and made the fun and exposed descending traverse to Bwlch Tryfan and the onward leisurely descent to the valley. As usual, a day with Marie and Andy is always a pleasure and I hope we can catch up again very soon.
June 4, 2010 at 11:45 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
I left the family in Pembroke and got the train back (which broke down twice!) to head up a day’s corporate activity which Peak Mountaineering were running for our good friends at Breathing Space (www.breathingspace.uk.com). Breathing Space are experts in corporate development activities and over the years we’ve organised a number of events and activities for them.
Today we were joined by 13 professionals from a St Albans based engineering consultancy for a day’s guided walking in the Peak District. This was provided as a package event with the team enjoying a challenging 10 mile circuit of the Derwent Valley (with a fine picnic lunch at Back Tor) then celebrating their acheivement in the Yorkshire Bridge pub before a fine meal and relaxing evening at the Devonshire Arms Hotel in Baslow. We also threw in a few games and development activities that are sure to be the talk of the office on Monday! The weather for the day was glorious and the team were great fun. I hope they enjoyed their evening as much as instructors Richard, Craig and I enjoyed our day with you. Many thanks to you all.
Over the years Peak Mountaineering has developed considerable expertise in organising and running events for a wide range of enlightened businesses and organisations and our collaboration with leading companies like Breathing Space strengthens the opportunities available. Please contact Breathing Space on 08453 880037 or speak to us on 01614407065 if you want to find out more. Now, more than ever, businesses need a bit of breathing space.
June 4, 2010 at 11:05 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
I’ve spent the last few days with the family (infact, a LOT of families!) in Pembroke. The week has become a regular Whitsun fixture and in recent years has been expertly orgainised by John. I’m not sure of the exact number of particpants but I do know there were 42 children (which is the most significant number as it obviously made up the noisiest bit!) and we took over a large field on Sandy Haven campsite near Milford Haven to enjoy a week of awesome sunniness (not sure that’s actually a word but you get the idea).
There were lots of activities going on and the kids cycled, swam, created weird structures on the beach, caught a lot of crabs (but released them again of course!), slacklined (Ben managed his first 180 turns and Tom invented a Master Yoda move that should soon make the world slacklining circuit), played cricket, football, frisbee, flew kites (Tom had an ‘exciting’ experience with the Flexifoil that nearly saw him heading for America!), ate lots of ice cream, cooked awesome pizza (*see the note about these at the bottom) and jaffles (**read about these at the bottom too), ran, jumped, skipped, hopped and put on some great puppet shows. It’s been a great week.
Of course no trip to Pembroke would be complete without some climbing and we fitted a chunk of that in too. We took a load of children to the brilliant Caerfai Bay near St Davids and they enjoyed some exciting abseils and climbs up to hard severe. Then the adults took over while the kids did kid type stuff at the beach and we did a number of routes topped in quality by the brilliant moderate classic Amorican (VS 4c) which is a Pembroke must. I also visited St Govans’s with Katherine and enjoyed a lovely evening revisting some of the mid range classics. There really is nowhere quite like Pembroke. Please climb there if you haven’t already……….or give us a call and we’ll take you there to show you what you’re missing.
Cheers,
Paul
Two bits of camping equipment that we’ve picked up on our travels and you should not leave home without…..
*The Outback Camp Oven is fantastic. It sits on top of your campstove and cooks anything an oven can. Pizza is brilliant, muffins and cookies are outstanding and pies and quiches are the bees knees. The rest we’ll leave to your imagination.
It’s an American product but you can find them available in the UK via http://backpackerspantry.co.uk/shop/index.php/outback-oven.html. There’s various you tube videos showing how they work. It’s well worth getting the larger one. Not cheap but worth every penny.
** We bought our Jaffle Iron (also often known as a pie iron) in South Africa but it seems they are used all over the world. They make great toasted sandwiches over a stove or in a fire (egg and cheese toasties are our favourites). We have a simple round design but they appear to be available in all shapes and sizes at http://www.pie-irons.co.uk/shop/.
Happy Cooking and remember where you heard it first 
