It has been a while since I last posted and a lot has been going on…

Back in October I attended an International Mountain Leader training course at Plas y Brenin, which, although mostly a training course, does have an element of assessment namely the speed navigation test. I was very apprehensive at the thought of this test, and sitting there on the first morning looking around the room, and then listening to everyone else list off their experience did not help! But, the test itself was mostly easy, finding about 6 flags with a punch to record on the map where you had visited. The features were spread about on Moel Siabod with a time limit of around 3 hours, and I made it back with about 35 minutes to spare. The rest off the course was a mixture of classroom and outdoor activities, covering many aspects of the syllabus really got me fired up to continue.

In November, I had the last of my DofE expeditions with Mud and Maps and also delivering training on a Countryside leader award course in Ashdown forest. I enjoy doing these courses as its good to meet people and listen to their experience, I also really love to help them build on their skills and give some alternative ways of approaching tasks, such as learning how to navigate and emergency procedures.

Early December bought a short trip up to Scotland looking for winter… unfortunately, it was missing when we arrived! But it did put in an appearance on a long trip up Aonach Beag and Beinn Eibhinn Overall still a good trip away.

January arrived and I was off to the alps for International Mountain Leader winter training, which was based in Le Grand Bornand, again provided by the team at Plas y Brenin. There was very little in the way of snow conditions when we arrived, but this did improve during the week with some fresh snow. This was the first time I had used snowshoes and I really enjoyed it! On the course we covered lots, including; avalanche awareness, snow pack analysis, different types of snow and quite a bit on the winter environment, as well as a lot of work with avalanche tranceivers. We were out every day and swapped instructors midweek to get a different perspective. It was a very good week and I learnt a lot.

After my course in January I had some really good feedback from the instructors which was encouraging. Before I can think about going for assessment however, I need to get some more international winter days. So with that in mind, February bought with it a very long weekend trip to the Swiss Jura. A friend and I had four full days of snowshoeing, walking through forests and up onto small summits, often with some outstanding views of the Alps to the south – a very nice area which I would certainly go back to.

So, looking forward, I have a lot of DofE work from a few different providers, some of which are new to me. Then summer International Mountain Leader assessment in the Pyrenees in September, and who knows?