Exploring and learning while out on outdoor adventures.
We made it. My son fell ill with a stomach bug during our first scheduled cycle camping attempt and our plans collapsed entirely. This year, we finally made it happen though it nearly didn’t. That ill-fated weekend, my daughter and I salvaged something by heading to Rowsley for a gravel ride and ice cream, but …
Continue reading “Cycle Camping the Eastern Moors: Our 11th Annual Cycle Camping Adventure”
What if a single weekend could quietly reshape your entire relationship with the mountains? For me, that weekend came in the summer of 1998. I was 20, a university student with a love for scrambling, mountains and maps. I thought I was just going for a run in the hills. I had no idea I …
Continue reading “The Capricorn in Galloway, 1998: Where My Mountain Marathon Story Began”
I had recently completed my Single Pitch Award training course through the Mountain Leader Training Board. The first formal stage towards qualifying to lead and supervise groups at outdoor climbing venues. The course had given me a much more systematic understanding of ropes, belaying, anchors and the responsibility involved in looking after other climbers. What …
Continue reading “My First Sport Climbing Weekend at Portland, 1998”
While going through an old folder of mountaineering qualifications and course paperwork, I found a pile of weather charts pushed into the back. They dated from around August 1996, when I was seventeen. At first glance, they look like old maritime charts showing the sea areas around Britain and the North Atlantic. Scattered across them …
Continue reading “Drawing Weather Charts from the Shipping Forecast in 1996”
On Friday 15 May 1998, I began my Single Pitch Award training. But that three day course didn’t happen in isolation. A few weeks earlier, I’d helped lead a school expedition to Knoydart. The weekend before the course, I’d travelled to Derbyshire to lead climbs at Harborough Rocks. The weekend after, I was attempting the …
Continue reading “Single Pitch Award Training in 1998: Becoming a Climbing Instructor”