Introduction
This is the story of the twelve months between completing my Single Pitch Award (SPA) training in May 1998 and returning for the assessment in May 1999.
It draws on my climbing logs, supervision records, diaries and contemporary accounts written by friends. Together they preserve a surprisingly detailed record: not just of what I climbed, but of who I climbed with, the responsibilities I was beginning to take on and the people who helped shape my development.
It would be easy to describe the year simply as preparation for an assessment, or as a progression through climbing grades. It was neither.
My own climbing was developing at the same time as I was beginning to teach, organise and take responsibility for other climbers. I was still learning from people with far more experience than me, but increasingly I was also becoming one of the people expected to help someone else.
Looking back, the year feels less like a training period than an apprenticeship in judgement: learning not simply how to climb, but what competence means when other people begin to depend on you.
Before the SPA
I had already spent considerable time scrambling and walking in the mountains. In the summer of 1997 I completed Mountain Leader (Summer) training with Carlo Forte at Plas y Brenin, who explicitly advised me not to become distracted by rock climbing and instead to concentrate on developing my mountain skills.
I didn’t entirely follow that advice.
From autumn 1997 I began taking climbing much more seriously.
That tension between mountaineering and rock climbing would characterise much of the following year. SPA necessarily focused on single pitch rock climbing, but many of the experiences I accumulated around it, particularly multi pitch, mountain and remote climbing, also strengthened my wider mountaineering experience.
My formal Summer Mountain Leader assessment would not come until 2015, but many of the foundations were being laid much earlier.
1. After Training: Learning to Lead
May 1998
The SPA training course concluded on 15-17 May 1998.
Within a fortnight I was already taking on some responsibility beyond my own climbing.
28 May: Bear Rock Climbing Centre, Warwick University
Working through Mike Smith, who ran the Sports Centre and in particular the Bear Rock climbing wall, and probably assisting Paul Smith, I helped supervise six 13-year-old novices.
The word assist sounds fairly passive. I remember having rather more responsibility than I initially expected.
I was involved in fitting harnesses, tying people in, belaying, teaching belaying, supervising bouldering, top roping and abseiling.
That immediate immersion in helping other people climb would prove important.
16 June: Stancliffe Hall School, Derbyshire
I did similar instructional work with school pupils at Stancliffe Hall, again covering the practical skills involved in supervising climbing.
A pattern was already emerging: my own climbing development and my growing responsibility for other climbers were happening at the same time.
June 1998
28 June: The Roaches, Upper Tier
This is the first personal climbing recorded in my log after the training course.
- Right Hand Route: S 4a, seconded
- Jeffcoat’s Chimney: VD, led
It established a pattern that would recur repeatedly over the following months: climb something harder when somebody else was responsible for the protection, then take responsibility for my own rope and gear on easier ground.
At this stage, straightforward leads were probably more useful than chasing grades.
Each one meant making the decisions myself: where to place protection, how to manage the rope, how to construct a belay and what to do when the route did not quite unfold as expected.
July 1998
4 July: Stanage, Eastern Edge
- Miranda’s Variation: VD, led
- The Rack: D, led
- The Pinion: VD, led
- Manhattan Arête: D, solo
- Nursery Crack: VS 5a, seconded
- Doctor’s Chimney: VD, led
Again, the hardest route of the day was not the most useful measure of where my climbing had reached.
I could climb harder moves when somebody else was responsible for the protection. When every decision was mine, I deliberately operated at a lower level.
That distinction would matter for quite some time.
18 July: Portland, North Cliff
- Ocean Boulevard: VS 5a, seconded
- Nothing Shocking: E2 5c, seconded
- Inception: HVS 5a, seconded
18 July: Battleship Edge
- I’m Doing It Anyway: HS 4b, led on bolts
- This Is This: VS 4c, led on bolts
- Braer Rabbit: VS 4c, seconded
19 July: Blacknor South
- Pret a Porter: VD, led
- Hippo Bathday: VD, led
(now known as Intermediate Route on the Fallen Slab)
This was my first proper weekend of outdoor sport climbing.
At North Cliff I was entirely following, including Nothing Shocking at E2 5c. At Battleship Edge I began leading on fixed protection.
Bolted climbing felt fundamentally different. The protection was visible above me and I did not have to find somewhere to place a nut or hex, although clipping correctly and dealing safely with the lower-off at the top brought its own skills.
The following day I returned to traditional climbing and chose VDiffs.
Being able to second E2, lead VS on bolts and choose VDiff when placing my own protection was not really inconsistent. Different skills were simply developing at different rates.
The weekend mattered for another reason too. These were WUMC (Warwick University Mountaineering Club) trips: driving somewhere together, camping, eating cheaply, climbing, going to the pub and inevitably getting things wrong together.
They were where friendships were being formed and strengthened. At the time they probably felt like ordinary weekends. Looking back, some of those ordinary weekends changed my life.
22 July: Birchen Edge
- Trafalgar Crack: VD 4a, led
- Trafalgar Wall: VS 4b, led
- Camperdown Crawl: VS 4c, led
- Power Monkey Parade: S 4b, led
- Top Sail: VS 4c, seconded
This stands out as a particularly strong day of leading.
I remember a day at Birchen Edge around this period climbing with Ad (Adrian Bonell) when he seemed deliberately unwilling to lead anything himself. Instead, he kept pointing me towards routes and encouraging me to do the leading.
I cannot be certain this was that exact day, although the climbing record fits the memory extremely well.
If it was, the important thing was not simply that I led several S and VS routes. It was that somebody more experienced had judged that I was capable of doing so and created the opportunity for me to discover it.
Ad’s contribution was not to climb the route for me. It was knowing what to suggest and saying, in effect:
You can do that one.
2. Bigger Ground: Discovering What Climbing Could Be
August 1998: Harris and Taransay
August changed the scale of things.
I travelled to the Outer Hebrides with Ad, Charlotte, Emily, Steve and Tim, these people who became important in different ways.
Steve became one of my regular climbing partners during those early years. We did a great deal of climbing together and learned alongside one another. He is also someone I still see today.
Tim became a particularly special part of my life. There was running on Rum and Knoydart, my first Welsh 3000s and, later, classic rock routes in the Lake District close to where he lived. Then taking the kids when they were young to bivvy in his woodland and cook on a campfire.
The climbing log records routes.
The experiences behind them were much bigger.
6 August: Sron Ulladale, Harris
- Eureka: VS 4c, seconded, multi-pitch with Steve
This was my first genuinely substantial multi pitch rock climb and my first experience climbing on double ropes.
Sron Ulladale was unlike anything I had previously experienced: huge, remote and intimidating. The route climbed through properly committing terrain, including overhanging rock, with the unmistakable feeling that we were on a major mountain cliff rather than doing pitches at a local crag.
We were camping at what was effectively a free campsite: a beach, a toilet and little else, looking across towards Taransay.
Even getting to and from the climb involved a degree of uncertainty that seems unusual now.
There were no smartphones, no location sharing and no simple way to call for collection. We got a lift to the road head, walked in and had only a fairly vague plan for getting back. The plan was essentially to walk, hitch and work something out. Eventually we saw the familiar red Toyota van moving across our path and managed to flag it down.
They had come to find us.
8 August: Taransay
- Fallen Eyrie: VS 5a, seconded
- New route with Steve and Tim
- Grid reference: 034027
9 August: Taransay
- Buoys Buoys Buoys: HVS 4b, seconded
- New route with Steve and Tim
- Grid reference: 002008
I particularly remember this route as having relatively little protection, which contributed to its seriousness.
11 August: Taransay
- Lost Tune: VS 4c, seconded
- New route with Steve and Tim
- Grid reference: 004009
We reached Taransay by boat, (well except for Tim and Steve, Tim windsurfed over towing Steve on a spare board) long before the island became nationally familiar through the television series Castaway and Ben Fogle.
It was an extraordinary place to be climbing.
These were also my first experiences of new routing.
Normally a guidebook provided a direction, a grade and, perhaps most importantly, the reassurance that somebody else had already climbed the line.
On Taransay none of that existed.
We looked at the rock and worked it out ourselves.
That made even apparently straightforward climbing feel different.
There were other adventures mixed in with the climbing.
I attempted to learn to windsurf, with fairly limited success, and discovered one lesson rather dramatically: an offshore wind is not ideal when learning to windsurf on an uninhabited island.
Tim was enjoying himself well out at sea on his board. Steve was in the dunes trying to attract his attention.
Meanwhile, my own situation was becoming rather less amusing.
Our connection with the outside world was essentially a VHF marine radio.
Looking back, parts of it seem slightly alarming.
At the time, it simply felt like adventure.
18 August: Harborough Rocks
- Pedestal Crack: S 4a, led
- Thin Air: VS 4b, led
- Crinkle Crack: VS 4b, led
Back in the Peak, the climbing log shows an obvious change.
I was no longer occasionally trying a VS. I was starting to lead VS routinely while placing my own protection, all be it lets say easier VS’s!
September 1998
There is a little uncertainty around the dates here.
Several entries in my original climbing log are written as August, but their position in the chronology strongly suggests that I accidentally wrote the wrong month. I have therefore treated them as September.
The precise dates may be uncertain.
The climbs themselves are not.
11 September: Gardom’s Edge
- Right Hand Crack: VS 4c, led
12 September: Stanage
- Youth: VD, led
12 September: Harborough Rocks
- Steep Ridge: HD, solo
- The Furrow: D, solo
19 September: Harborough Rocks
- Bow Corner: VD, solo
- Bow Arête: HD, solo
- Steep Ridge: HD, solo
- Little Little Crack: HD, solo
- Scoops Wall: VD
My diary records simply:
“Sunny afternoon, v. light shower.”
It looks like one of those afternoons when I simply went climbing on my own before university restarted.
Harborough Rocks and nearby Robin Hood’s Stride became places where I liked spending time alone: climbing, bouldering, exploring the woods and caves and simply being outside.
I would return to those landscapes in very different stages of my life.
20 September: Curbar Edge
With Charlotte and Ad:
- Brindle Crack: HS 4b, led
- Flying Buttress: S 4a, led
- PMC 1: HS 4a, led
This day I remember much more clearly.
I was climbing with Charlotte while Ad kept a watchful eye, we had been to the foundry climbing wall the night before and my arms will still sore. At some point he pointed me towards PMC 1.
My memory of climbing it remains very simple:
Wow. What a route.
Once again, Ad’s contribution was not to do the climbing for me. It was to recognise the right challenge and give me the confidence to try it.
That kind of mentoring, providing the opportunity rather than solving the problem, became an important part of my development.
3. Becoming Useful: Teaching and Taking Responsibility
October 1998
As my personal climbing developed, my role within WUMC was changing too.
Throughout October I repeatedly helped introduce new members to climbing at Bear Rock.
As a WUMC committee member I had become one of the people showing novices how to put on harnesses, tie in, belay, lower climbers safely, boulder and move around the wall.
This was unpaid club activity rather than the paid assisting I had done for Mike Smith, but it provided something equally valuable: repetition.
A system shown once on a training course becomes something quite different after you have explained it to beginner after beginner.
25 October: Cratcliffe Tor
- Bouldering
Cratcliffe and Robin Hood’s Stride became favourite places for me to go on my own.
There was the bouldering, but also the woodland, rocks and caves.
Years later I would return to the same area running with Gail, proposing to my now ex-wife and later still with my children.
The same landscape, but very different chapters of life.
25 October: Lawrencefield Quarry
With Will, Ant, Mat, Steve, Mel, Dave and Lou:
- Red Wall: E1 5b, seconded
Will led.
It was another example of the same useful division: harder climbing as a second, while my own leading developed at more moderate grades.
31 October-1 November: WUMC Freshers’ Meet
I did not record significant personal route ticks from this weekend, but it belongs in the story.
At Harborough Rocks my diary says:
“Helped setting up top ropes + instructing in the mist.”
The following day at Burbage North:
“Bouldered and helped setting up top ropes and instructing in rain.”
By now I had a reasonable amount of autonomy in choosing anchors and setting up systems.
Looking back, I suspect some of those systems were rather over engineered. But that was part of developing judgement too: moving from knowing many different ways of making something safe towards understanding what was appropriate and sufficient.
The Freshers’ Meet also included a memorable non climbing incident.
Paul Smith and I went to get extra breakfast supplies. Near Ashover, on wet leaves, the car Paul was driving left the road and rolled onto its roof.
Fortunately we emerged to tell the story.
The university apparently did not subsequently provide another car for the sports clubs.
November 1998: North Wales
28 November: Gribin Facet
With Rus:
- Slab Climb: D, led
- 4 pitches
My diary records:
“Got hailed on at the 3rd stance.”
29 November: Tryfan Fach
With Rus:
- Crack 4: first pitch, D, led
- Slab 2: second pitch, S, led
followed by:
- Little Tryfan Arête: D, led
- 3 pitches
The note for the day says:
“Climbing in the wet in boots.”
This was probably a fairly typical WUMC mountain weekend: minibus, camping below Tryfan, a relatively small mixed ability group and different climbing parties doing different things.
I had some responsibility within the wider club group but still found time to climb with Rus.
The grades were modest.
The setting and experience were not.
I was leading multiple pitches, managing stances and ropes, climbing in boots on wet mountain rock and getting hailed on while standing at a belay.
It feels like an important stage in the progression from scrambling in the mountains to climbing in them.
December 1998
My personal climbing log is quiet during December, but the instructional experience continued.
13 December: Stancliffe Hall School
I assisted Adrian Bonell with twelve 13-year-olds.
By then Ad had become much more than somebody I occasionally climbed with. He was one of the people supporting much of my early outdoor development through Easter trips, climbing, mountaineering and increasingly adventurous journeys.
I had also helped build the climbing wall at Stancliffe Hall.
Over time, Ad gradually gave me more responsibility.
Looking back, it was an apprenticeship of sorts, although I would never have described it that way at the time.
January 1999
10 January: Froggatt Edge
With Steve Irish:
- Silver Crack: S 4b, seconded
- Sickle Buttress: VD, led
24 January: Stanage
With Will Wykes:
- Queersville: HVS 5a, seconded
- Straight Chimney: VD, led
- Hargreaves’ Original Route: VS 4c, seconded
- Hollybush Crack: VD, led
Harder second, comfortable lead, harder second, comfortable lead.
By now the pattern hardly needs explaining.
30 January: Robin Hood’s Stride
- Letter Route: D, solo
- Pinnacle Chimney: M, solo
I suspect this may have been another visit while staying with Ad and Charlotte who lived close to Darley Dale.
31 January: Black Rocks
- Queen’s Parlour Gully: D, led
My diary records:
“Wet, slimy, dark.”
followed by:
“Absailed down to retrieve gear.”
Sometimes three words preserve a day better than an entire trip report.
Around the same time, Ad was allowing me more responsibility with the Stancliffe Hall climbers.
On 30 January my supervision log records me not as Assistant but as Leader, working with one beginner and one novice.
It was a small change in terminology, but not an insignificant one.
Ad knew my climbing, had watched me develop and was gradually trusting me to take responsibility myself.
4. Becoming a Leader: Responsibility for the Whole Group
February 1999: Yorkshire
6 February: Cow and Calf, Ilkley
- Chiseller: HS P3, top-roped
- Cow Crack: VD P1, led
- A Climb: S P1, seconded, three pitches
The old Yorkshire P grades related to seriousness and protection rather than pitch numbers.
The final route was with Steve Martin, one of Ad’s friends, who came to visit towards the end of the club day.
But the most significant entry for the weekend is not a route.
My diary says:
Trip leader.
I was responsible for a WUMC group of around sixteen people of mixed ability.
That meant accommodation, booking the minibus, Sports Federation paperwork, equipment, helping organise people and supporting newer climbers.
At the crag I was setting top ropes, checking other people’s systems and advising on belay arrangements.
University clubs can create that transition remarkably quickly. Most students are only around for three or four years. Experienced members graduate and somebody else has to take their place.
A novice can become a committee member surprisingly quickly.
I was becoming one of the people expected to step up.
7 February: Malham Cove, Left Wing
- Wall and Crack: VD, led
- Straight Crack: S, led
The weekend therefore combined responsibility for the wider trip with enough space to do some climbing for myself.
That overlap was becoming normal.
20 February: Haytor, Dartmoor
- Central Chimney: D, led
- Vandal & Ann: HVS 5a, top-roped after the pitch had been led
- Superdirect: S, led
This is one of the weekends for which Will’s contemporary UK.REC.CLIMBING report adds considerable context.
His account describes Princetown, Haytor and Low Man, worsening weather and climbers still trying to make something of the weekend.
My own supervision log records another part of the picture: I was helping introduce less experienced WUMC members to outdoor climbing.
Will naturally wrote about the adventures of his immediate climbing group.
My own records remind me that, around the edges of my personal climbing, I had also become one of the people helping the wider club.
March 1999
6 March: Wintour’s Leap, Wye Valley
- Corner Buttress: VD 4a, led
The supervision log states I was helping one intermediate climber learn multi-pitch climbing.
That meant working through the process of climbing a route together: stance management, rope organisation, changeovers and explaining what was happening.
SPA itself was specifically a single pitch award.
By this point, both my own experience and some of the experience I was passing on had already begun to extend beyond its formal scope in the university club setting.
13 March: Rivelin Edge
With Will and Mat.
My diary begins:
“Sunny spring is here at last!”
- Croton Oil: HVS 5a, seconded
- White Out: E2 5c, seconded
- Rodney’s Dilemma: HVD, led
- Blizzard Ridge: E1 5a, seconded
This feels like a good example of what had become my happy place.
Will in particular seemed determined to climb almost every weekend, including plenty when the forecast gave us very good reasons not to bother.
I was very happy to second.
Later this year I also acquired a second hand car.
Being a willing seconder was useful.
Being a willing seconder with a car was even more useful.
Quite a few apparently unpromising weather days turned into excellent climbing days.
Sometimes you simply have to go and see what happens.
27 March: The Roaches, Skyline Area
With Ant, Will, Mat and others:
- Left Twin Crack: HS, seconded
- Square Chimney: D, led
- Condor Slab: VS 4b, seconded
- Perched Block Arête: VD, led
Again, harder climbing as a second was interspersed with more straightforward personal leads.
By now that distinction between being able to climb the moves and having the judgement to lead the whole route had become deeply familiar.
April 1999: North Uist
My diary says Sunday 3 April. Since 3 April 1999 was actually a Saturday, I have treated the day of the week as the thing I was more likely to have remembered correctly. I will put this down to being on Island time on the outer Hebrides. This was another Stancliffe Hall School Easter trip and a good one that included a night on an uninhabited island only accessible by boat, in our case being ferried across by a rib.
Sunday 4 April: North Uist
With Steve Martin and Tim Birks.
At Leac na Hoe Point the note appears to describe:
- an approximately VD climb out close to the abseil line
I clearly remember this abseil line, there were two abseil spikes at the top of the cliff in the ground. When checking how secure they were one of the spikes was kicked and the other one wobbled too in the peat!
There was also exploration around:
- Rubha an Duine
No secure route name survives in my diary.
Once again, the experience lay well outside narrow SPA preparation: remote Scottish sea cliffs, abseiling in, exploring and working out how to get back out again.
10-12 April: Three Days with Tim Birks
Saturday 10 April: Chatsworth
- Double Cave Climb: VD, led
- Dead Tree Crack: S, led
- Dead Tree Ridge: VD, seconded
- Strangler’s Crack: VD, led
Sunday 11 April: Rivelin
- Pious Flake: S, led
- Solitaire: VD, led
- Rodney’s Dilemma: HVD, seconded
- Crack One: HVD, led
- Lichen Slab: S, led
- The Crevice: VD, seconded
- The Diagonal: VD, led
- Cartridge Crack: VD, seconded
Monday 12 April: Froggatt
- Swimwear Chimney: HVD, seconded
- Sunset Crack: VS 4b, led
- North Climb: HVD, seconded
- Slab and Crack: D, led
- Tunnel Crack: S, seconded
The climbing log mistakenly gives March for the final day, while my separate diary makes clear that it belonged to this three-day April sequence with Tim.
Across three consecutive days I was repeatedly leading, seconding, tying in, placing protection, constructing belays and swapping roles.
There was nothing spectacular about many of the grades.
But this kind of mileage creates fluency.
The VS 4b lead of Sunset Crack also provides a useful marker of where my leading had reached shortly before assessment.
22 April: Froggatt
With Ant Rowe:
- Heather Wall: S, led
- Soft Option: HD, seconded
- Sunset Slab: HVS 4b, seconded
- Grey Slab: S, led
Grey Slab earned the diary comment:
“awkward off width”
28 April: Froggatt
With Will Wykes and Dan Connell:
- Green Gut: S 4a, led
- Ragbag: E2 5b, seconded
- Sundowner: E2 5a, seconded
This day survives particularly well because Will wrote about it shortly afterwards on UK.REC.CLIMBING.
His report specifically records me leading Green Gut, with Dan following.
We then moved on to the harder routes.
Will’s contemporary account gives a different name for the E2 5b, but my climbing log clearly says Ragbag, which is the name I have retained.
His report also preserves the sort of detail that makes contemporary accounts so valuable.
After all that climbing, we stopped for kebabs at Spiro’s opposite Safeway (now the Morrisons) in Chesterfield.
My climbing log remembers the grades.
Will’s report remembers the evening.
5. Assessment: Proving What the Year Had Already Taught Me
May 1999: Tremadog
The May bank-holiday weekend brought many strands of the previous year together.
I was now part of the WUMC committee group organising the wider trip. That meant thinking about the group as a whole, supporting intermediate climbers and helping make sure less experienced members were climbing with suitable people.
At the same time, I was still there to climb.
1 May: Craig Bwlch y Moch
With Dan:
- Valerie’s Rib: HS, multi-pitch
- Christmas Curry: S, multi-pitch
My diary contains one of my favourite surviving annotations:
“mistake did first pitch of Valour at ~ HVS 5b. Ahem…!”
I had apparently started up the wrong line on Valerie’s Rib and unexpectedly found myself leading considerably harder climbing than I intended.
Will later remembered this slightly differently, describing it as my first HVS 5a lead.
The exact retrospective grade matters less than the experience.
I had set off expecting one thing, discovered that I was on substantially harder ground and dealt with it.
2 May: Craig y Castell
With Ant:
- Creagh Dhu Wall: HS 4b, multi-pitch
My climbing log says:
“queued for route”
Will’s report supplies the missing context.
This was a WUMC weekend which included a 1970s-themed climbing day, and the classic route was busy.
A cryptic two-word comment in a logbook suddenly becomes part of a much larger weekend.
3 May: Craig Bwlch y Moch
With Dan:
- Oakover: VS 4c, multi-pitch
Across the three days I was helping organise a university climbing meet, supporting a mixed-ability group, helping intermediate climbers gain experience and doing my own multi-pitch climbing with Dan and Ant.
That probably says more about where I had reached than any individual grade.
9 May: Final Preparation at Stanage
With Dan and Will:
- Left Wall Route: VD, led
The route itself was not really the important part of the day.
My diary then records us working through:
- top-rope setups
- top belays
- bottom belays
- releasable abseils
- problem solving
- another rescue/problem-solving technique whose handwritten name I can no longer read with complete confidence
This was unmistakably assessment preparation.
Much of the previous year had involved gaining experience naturally through climbing, WUMC and working with other climbers.
Now, with only three days to go, I was deliberately revising.
Interestingly, these technical systems were not what worried me most.
I had practised them repeatedly. Group management had become increasingly familiar. Problem solving appealed to the engineer in me.
The thing I remember being most nervous about was being watched leading.
12-14 May 1999: SPA Assessment
Lake District
The route I remember leading to demonstrate my personal climbing competence was:
- The Crack: VS 5a, led
- single pitch
I remember the crag as somewhere in the Lake District, probably not especially far from Coniston, but I have not been able to identify the venue confidently.
That uncertainty matters less than what I remember about the climb itself.
I was acutely conscious of being assessed.
By then I had led plenty of traditional routes, climbed multi-pitch routes in the mountains, seconded E2s, climbed on remote Scottish islands, organised university meets, taught novices, checked other people’s systems and spent almost a year repeatedly turning what I had learned on SPA training into experience.
Yet being watched and judged still made leading feel different.
Perhaps it should have.
The assessment was supposed to establish whether I could take responsibility when it mattered although thanks to Chris Ensoll who was assessing I learnt so much and this was the day I stopped carrying endless screwgates and started setting up belays with use of my double ropes and more knots and less screw gates!
The year between training and assessment was where I had learned what that responsibility actually meant.
Looking Back
Read simply as a list of routes, my log shows a young climber becoming more experienced.
Read alongside my diary and supervision records, it shows something more interesting.
At the beginning of the year I was still largely the person being taught and looked after.
Ad pointed me towards routes. Steve, Tim, Will and others took me climbing. More experienced people checked my systems, made judgements about what I was ready for and gave me opportunities.
Then, almost imperceptibly, the direction began to reverse.
I started helping children climb.
Then university freshers.
Then novice groups outdoors.
Later I was checking other people’s belays, setting up systems, organising minibuses and accommodation, leading a sixteen person WUMC trip and helping intermediate climbers understand multi pitch climbing.
None of those transitions happened cleanly.
Even at the end of the year I was still learning from people who knew more than I did. At Tremadog I could have responsibility for the wider club trip and still go climbing with people from whom I had plenty to learn myself.
That may have been one of the most valuable lessons of the whole process.
Competence did not mean reaching a point at which I no longer needed other people. Nor did taking responsibility for someone else mean that my own learning had finished.
The two things happened together.
SPA training in May 1998 gave me a framework.
The assessment in May 1999 tested what I could do.
But the important part was everything that happened in between: the ordinary weekends, the wet belays, the badly remembered dates, the minibuses, the remote cliffs, the top ropes in the rain, the people who quietly decided I was ready to try something harder, and the gradual realisation that other people were beginning to place the same trust in me.
I didn’t stop being a learner when I started becoming one of the people responsible for others.
Perhaps that was the real progression.