Technical Courses Blog Category

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Lakes Winter Conditions

Now that I am back from a weekend on the Grit (perfect friction), an AMI Trainers meeting in N Wales and the ERCA conference ill be on the hill catching up.

Conditions are looking perfect into the future.

I here the Ice is forming well and and many routes are being climbed.

I am out tomorrow with one of my regular clients. As soon as I am back in the office ill up date you all ready for those who can get out on the weekend.

This weekend I’ll be climbing with Paul from London, Paul runs a business called Hearn and Sons and has been learning ropes this year and making great progress.

If anyone is keen to learn the art of winter climbing and making the right judgments we can equip you with the knowledge .

Drop me a line or have a look at some of the courses on the site.

Its cold outside….

The fire is lit as winter has arrived in the Lakes. Snow down to 300m at the weekend, high winds and a little chilly. I have a feeling its going to be another great winter.  Skis at the ready!  It might also be time to start thinking about winter skills courses too.

New Course Dates

We have just posted new course dates for 2011.   Whether you are already for assessment, keen to attend a training course, polish off your skills or spend the winter preparing, we have the course for you!  We have course dates for CWA, SPA and ML, both training and assessment courses available.  If you cant find what you are looking for just ask….

Learn to Climb course and ML rope work Refresher

Well today it rained, quite a bit, so we headed for an easy route in the Langdales and then spent the afternoon a little soggy looking at refreshing Izzi’s skills for her ML rope work, we covered the confidence roping and emergency rope work part of the syllabus including some handy advanced top tips and tricks.

After a bowl of soup in the Old Dungeon Ghyll it was off to the train station to drop Izzi off for her journey home.

Learn to Climb Course

Izzi has done quite a bit of climbing on a wall and a little on single pitch crags but wanted to know the technicalities of multi pitch climbing. We spent the day looking at all the skills needed to be a competent second.

We climbed Brown Slabs Arete, Ardus and Little Chamonix.

Learn to Climb – Day 2

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We headed over to the Limestone at a place I first stepped foot on a crag when I was 12, Hutton Roof. Sarah was still on the way to being 100% over her fear of “the edge” and heights so this venue with more careful coaching allowed gave her the head space to take onboard the technical aspects.

After a number of routes Sarah and Michael’s brains where full so we finished the day with some more coaching on movement and bouldering.

Learn to Climb – Day 1

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Sarah and Michael arrived from Colchester on Thursday night and stayed in Ambleside. Michael runs a private medical practice, we spent most of our time chatting about business and databases, I popped them in touch with my database engineer and anorak Simon Fenna.

The first day we headed to Middle Fell Buttress in Langdale and looked at multi pitch climbing & abseiling, they are now well on there way to overcoming fears of heights and being able to second a leader with confidence of what they are doing and understand the bigger picture of multi pitch.

In the afternoon we headed into the valley where the exposure was less and did a spot of bouldering at the Langdale Boulders.

Sarah likes bouldering…

The Wobbly Rock – Dow Crag

Now the last time I was climbing on Dow, Helen and I where chatting with a fella who was noting how quiet the crag was and that this was due to a certain rock he had wedged on the footpath along the tarn.

Anyone who has climbed on Dow Crag in the past will remember the irritating echo of the clatter of a wobbly rock which got stood on every time a walker passed along side the tarn, sometimes walkers would notice the echo and even surf it for a while oblivious to the effect on a lead climber pulling through the crux of a route.

Well today Graham and I where walking up Coniston Old Man passed Goats Water with a Year 4 School Group from Manchester and found said rock…

After removing its wedge and surfing it for while the reprobate in us wanted to leave it in its natural state.

If you find the rock, please leave it chocked!!!

Guided Rock – Wasdale

Paul had not been rock climbing since hemp rope and hobnailed boots, he was keen to convert his skills to the present day!

During the week Paul learnt his limits using his new boots, all there was to know about basic rope work, placing gear, building anchors and abseiling.

Going away with a set of skills get himself up climbs safely he headed back South.

Paul and I will be climbing together again in September where we will build on what he has learnt and take it to another dimension.

Enjoy the video…

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Navigation Training

Kat was out today navigation training with a lad Tim from London. Tim is leading up to an event and wanted to top his skills up.

They headed to the area above Easedale and covered a number of skills on 3 varieties of maps before heading back to Grasmere for gingerbread then the train home.

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