A Week At Trewern

Micro nav with Chris in the Brecon Beacons - Micro nav in clear weather !

Trewern OEC have their own indoor climb wall, this photo shows a piece of it

I spent the week teaching at Trwern OEC, based in Hay-on-Wye. Yet again the weather was great, clear skies, warm and still no rain....

A Couple Of Days In North Wales

I went to PYB for a paddling course - only 2 days this time. I took some climbing stuff too, maybe an indoor climb on Saturday evening? I lucked out - my room mate turned out to be a climber, and was desperate to get out and lead something on Sat night (at this point I wished I'd brought a rack, rope, helmet and HEADTORCH !!!). We headed to Dinas Cromlech at about 6pm. Luke set off up Left Wall, wondering what his current form was like! Realising that he had wasn't pumped he finished with the Direct E3 variant. After we ab'ed down he wanted more so set off up Cemetary Gates and did the direct E2 finish. As I seconded the last light was fading, so I started to speed up, ripping gear and jumping for jugs lol. Fun Fun. Luckily Luke had a spare wind up torch, so we ab'ed off, climbed down and got to the car in dark. PYB - kept our evening meal :)

D of E Practice Gold Expedition

A reminder of basic nav skills on day 1

The view from the summit of Pen y Fan at 8.30am, waiting for the groups to arrive

One group planned to walk under Sgwd yr Eira. Lots of other tourists were enjoying it too

Part of the training on the first day involved using the bothy shelter

It was a great week for a D of E practice gold Exped. I was working with Bryony this week, for A to Z Expeditions. The girls from London, did really well, they did have cold weather a few times, and one girl suffered from getting very cold at one point - the rest of the team showed great teamwork in sorting out the problem... It all ended well, at the wild campsite that night. Good luck to them for the real Qualifying Exped in July.

Trip to North Wales

Me on Last Tango in Paris

Finding the right gear

Moving up to the overlap. Thanks to Hannah Evans for the photos

My trad climbing for the year started at Tremadog with Lena, before I had to go to PYB for my Canoe week, a 2 day White Water Safety and Rescue course followed by a 3 day 4* leader prep course. I managed to spend the evenings climbing on slate or indoors with Jess for 2 days and Jay for one evening. The week finished on the Saturday with another day on slate with Hannah, 5 routes, starting with Nat Attack and finishing with Last Tango in Paris. I hope to come back and try the Dervish in a couple of weeks.

Back To Caving

Back in Porth Yr Ogof

Finding some tight spaces

And some ledges above water


And some water...

Back working at the Soldier Development Wing, I found myself caving again. Not all of the Soldiers under training like caving, but they all 'man up' and get on with it... I ask them what their fears are - and then give them exaclty that, generally tight spaces and water without much space for air, all good stuff..

River Wye

Mark Hendry 'working'

This week and last week I've been working for the Army at the SDW, teaching initial training to SUT's for their Adventure training in their Basic Training. A couple of days we've been on the Wye, usually starting from Glasbury. The water level was sometimes suitable for surfing the above wave. This is work!