Gwilym's Adventure Blog

Out on The River Tavy this afternoon working with Olly from Plymouth College with some of his students for White Water Kayaking (more muddy brown to be honest) with some challenging river levels all over the moor.

Today I was down at The Life Centre in Plymouth running a Mountain Training Indoor Climbing Assistant course for Plymouth College Outdoor Education students. Nice to go back to a place that I used to work at and where I originally set up their Outdoor Education course to see that it has expanded both in delivery and the number of students on it. Always good to bump into a few ex colleagues and students and say hello.

Today I was running a NNAS Tutors Course in Penrith. 5 candidates and lots of different navigation teaching strategies throughout the day. It was very soggy as the end as we went out to look at how we can use these different techniques in the local area.

On my last day in Scotland, whilst Jake and Mandy went to climb a route at Diabaig, I decided just to chill out and wander around enjoying the views. The winter season hasn't quite gone to plan and although I have walked nearly 400 km since mid January looking for snow, there has been nearly as many summer adventures as winter ones this year. The journey south starts tomorrow and then it is back to the "flatlands" for a while. I will even get to sit in a kayak again next week which I haven't done yet in 2019.

On the 28th February 2009 I decided to start a blog of my Outdoor Adventures. I never really thought about how long I would run it for or how it would turn out. If I continue to have an active outdoor lifestyle/job then the blog may well run for another 10 years.

Still up in The North West Highlands, Jake, Mandy and I climbed the Cioch Nose which is near Bealach Na Ba on the road to Applecross. The last time I was here was on motorcycles in June 2016. It was a day of two halves weather wise. Windy and sunny at the and low wind and mist at the end. The routes itself has been on my list for some time. It has 3 pitches of nice climbing (pitch 3 being by far the best) followed by 2 pitches of reasonable climbing before and walk and scramble up the upper tier on rock that seemed to get looser and looser the higher we went The walk back from the top of the climb kept the interest going with a number of down climbs and short scrambles all the way along the ridge.  Quite a few other parties on the route today some of whom need to learn a little bit about etiquette at shared belay stances!

Having decided to embrace summer fully, Jake, Mandy and I headed to Torridon at early o'clock for a traverse of Liathach. A brutal pull up from the road to the first summit was rewarded with a bit of easy scrambling and a sandwich. It was a little sad to see 2 ptarmigan still in winter plumage trying to hide against a grey rock. We stuck to the ridge to keep the interest going but unfortunately, the mist did not lift and we did not get to see the potentially stunning views. As always, as we got down to the glen, the mist cleared as we looked back up to the ridge (last picture)