Summer Sunday Yardtime...

It’s another summery, back yard Sunday evening in Lancaster, the clouds are breaking up and it’s gone very still. After what seems like many weeks of unsettled, cool and showery weather, we’re promised a week of higher-than-average temperatures; 21°C daytime for most of the week ahead! That should be a good 5°C warmer than we’ve been used to, and with light winds too - balmy. At least it will get me ready for a week in the warmth of Alpine France at the end of the month. Compared to my last back yard blogging session, it already seems like the summer has marched on rapidly towards the next season; sunset time is now 20:43 and the light is already fading at just short of 21:00. The swifts are still reasonably active though, screeching around above our rooftops. When the skies fall silent at sunset in a few weeks time, we’ll know that autumn is well and truly building.

On the steps of the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park after Lancaster parkrun on Saturday morning.

We’ve had an active weekend, with Liz and Rowan visiting us here in Lancaster. Rowan came up by train from Twickenham and Liz drove from Beeston with Diva the dog. It was a weekend dominated by various sports; running, walking and swimming - quite appropriate given the Olympic action in the background that has kept us entertained in between. On Saturday morning, we were up and out early for the institution that is the parkrun. There’s a most lovely circuit around Williamson Park in Lancaster that was launched in early January this year and I’ve managed to fit in 14 of the sessions so far. I’ve a long way to go to catch up with Liz, who was out on her 50th parkrun appearance this weekend, a great achievement. Her local parkrun is Beeston, but she’s also done Cardiff a few times too. Lancaster is described by the run organisers as ‘slightly hilly’, due to the undulating figure of eight around the main park and also adjoining Fenham Carr woodlands. We were also joined by Sam and Rowan, who show us all how it’s done, coming in with fantastic sub-20 minute times and in 3rd and 1st places respectively. Well done indeed :-)!

After our morning trundle, we caught up with some more of the overnight Olympics action over breakfast. We then packed a picnic and headed up to the University so that Liz and Rowan could take a look at the latest developments at the Green Lancaster EcoHub. After having lunch there and spending some time being entertained by the antics of the newly re-stocked chicken flock (seven in total right now), we headed on down the A6 to Nicky Nook fell on the western edge of the Bowland Fells, overlooking the Lancashire plain. There are good views from the top, but the purple flowering, heather clad moors cast a dark shadow in my mind. It was one day after the ‘glorious twelfth’, or in other words the far less than glorious start of the grouse shooting season on the barren uplands of England and Scotland. The circuit improves vastly however on the way back as you pass through the lovely dense deciduous woodland cladding the valley containing Grizedale reservoir (North West Water land). Showing us how diverse it can all be where native woodlands is left to thrive.

On the way up Nicky Nook Fell.

On Saturday evening, we were back in Williamson Park for this years’ Dukes Theatre production, ‘The Hobbit’. It was the last night of the summer promenade production, using five different locations in the park to play out Bilbo’s journey through Middle Earth. It was a very entertaining production, and the atmosphere of the park is wonderful. The walk between the penultimate and final scene involved a spectacular wander through the trees, illuminated with coloured lights and lanterns, with the sounds of wood elves echoing around as they appeared and disappeared off in the woods. Gandalf looked on wisely from high on an embankment above the pathway.

Swimming at Capernwray Dive Lake. Photo: Rowan Axe.

Sunday was a rather overcast day in general and we started the day with another Olympic fix. This time it was the 10 000 m track race, featuring Mo Farrah. Another outstanding Gold from a great champion of the sport. Packing another picnic, along with many other things, we headed off a short way up to the M6 to the Capernwray dive lake. This was a location that I had not visited before, but one of my neighbours who is more heavily involved with the COLT’s (City of Lancaster Triathlon club) has been recommending for a while. It’s a great, little known facility. That is, unless you’re into diving, as there were around 200 divers suited on the lakeside or submerged somewhere in the abyss of this flooded former limestone quarry. We had not come to dive, but to do some open water swimming. After signing in and getting all the relevant info on which buoys to swim around etc., we wet-suited up and set off into the perfect blue water. Swimming in this lake was an incredible experience. None of the usual brown murky water that usually characterises our lakes, this place felt more akin to one of the large Alpine lakes, without the bitingly cold glacial meltwater. We swam a few times around the red buoys marking a 500 m swim circuit right around the lake perimeter. There are purpose built rocky reefs and every now and then, you swim through clouds of bubbles, ascending from the divers somewhere in the depths below. Quite a surreal experience. The lake is also stocked with an interesting variety of fish; among many others, there are trout, sturgeon and even pike. Some of them are absolutely huge. We didn’t see any of the mega sturgeon though, claimed to be up to around 3.5 m in length! Some divers told us the water was relatively cloudy today, due to the number of divers churning around in the depths. As a result, there were no views from the surface column of the multitude of submerged paraphernalia ranging from a small passenger aircraft to several boats and a former RAF helicopter. I did just about get a view of some white dive tanks lurking below at one point.

Capernwray Dive Lake from the cafe terrace. Photo: Rowan Axe.

Rowan and Liz headed off on their separate ways south this evening and Imogen is now up in the highlands of Scotland visiting her Uncle, managing to fit in a quick ascent of Curved Ridge on the imposing wall of Buachaille Etive Mor on the way up today. As for me, it’s now pretty much fully dark in the yard, although there’s still a faint glow in the sky out across Morecambe Bay. Back to the Olympics - I hear Andy Murray is in tennis finals action..!

Doing it in Duddon...

Surprisingly, it is still possible to get away from the summer holiday crowds on some Lakeland fells. Even more surprisingly there are a few valleys, mostly tucked away on the western side, that see few visitors in this otherwise manic land bursting at the seams with summer visitors seeking the inspiration of the likes of Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth and Arthur Wainwright... Despite being right on our doorstep, we generally prefer to reserve outings on the more well known Lake District Fells for the relative solitude that autumn and winter bring.

The peaceful upper Duddon Valley with Little Stand in the background.

It's a wild and wet, almost autumnal, August Sunday evening in Lancaster and the nights are starting to draw in (pretty much dark by 21:30). We're just back from a lovely weekend spent with a fine assortment of our Lancaster University Hiking Club friends at the Dale Head bunkhouse in Duddon Valley. It's a lovely secluded spot, just south of the Hardknott and Wrynose passes road. This steep, precipitous lane receives significant tourist traffic through the summer, offering a cut through from the Central Lakes to the popular valleys of Eskdale and Wasdale of the west. Turning off this road at its lowest point between the two passes at Cockley Beck leads down a narrow and much less frequented lane through hay meadows of the upper Duddon Valley. The Dale Head bunkhouse is based in a collection of old stone farm buildings amongst the meadows, surrounded by craggy hillsides, dashing upland becks and softer flushes of young deciduous woodland, gradually developing in the former conifer dominated Dunnerdale Forest on the slopes of Harter Fell.

Seathwaite Tarn (Reservoir)

Pike of Blisco.

Imogen and I arrived over at Dale Head after dark on Friday evening and settled in to the lively, convivial atmosphere in the bunkbarn. Thanks to Mark for providing a selection of fine northern ales in mini-kegs from Booths supermarkets across Cumbria. The mattresses were very comfortable and I slept very well in the country air and awoke refreshed on Saturday despite the late night.

We were a large group, so there were several parties heading out on differing activities on the Saturday. Sam was running a fell race in Borrowdale and two separate groups were heading off to climb; one lot on Dow Crag, the other on Long Scar (south side of Pike of Blisco). A significant number of us however headed out on foot from Dale Head, south along the River Duddon, ultimately aiming for Seathwaite Tarn on the western side of the Coniston Fells. The day started fairly warm and sunny, just as well as there were two sets of dubious stepping stones for us to traverse the river and back. At the second crossing, Mark took an impressive, full body plunge into the Duddon following an interesting manoeuvre over one of the large boulders forming the stepping stones! After this, Jim was then inspired to cool off with a full head plunge (see video above). All fun and games! We ascended up to Seathwaite Tarn, and then up the ridge leading to Grey Friar. This was a new Fell for me; as it is an outlier of the Coniston group. There are good views from the ascent and the summit, always good to see the hills we know so well from a slightly different angle. After Grey Friar, we continued across to Great Carrs and down to the top of the Wrynose Pass. Heading up on the north side of the pass, we observed Tom, Harriett, Daniel and Daphne climbing on Long Scar off to the right of the path. We continued up, passing Red Tarn and on up to where Crinkle Crags begins. From this point, we headed off due south along the almost level finger of high ground leading to Little Stand (741 m). This juts out into the head of the Duddon Valley. As a result, the descent down its nose, back to Cockley Beck can certainly be described as a direct, efficient and mostly pathless way down grass, boulders, heather and lastly a small amount of bracken and bog in order to loose the required 500 m of altitude to the bunkhouse below. Very satisfying indeed. The weather had gradually turned more autumnal as the day progressed and by late afternoon/early evening, there was a brisk westerly wind bringing increasing cloud and ultimately persistent drizzle to valley level. We had another very enjoyable evening in the bunkhouse filled with antics and acrobatics thanks to what can only be described as a 'flexibility challenge' game involving picking up a small cardboard box off the floor using your teeth, all the time without using your hands for support. Enough said on that, hopefully it paints the picture :-).

Enjoying much merriment in the Dale Head bunkbarn on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, the wind was still a prominent feature, but the clouds were whipping across at a fairly high level and the rain had ceased. A group of us headed out, again crossing the stepping stones leading to the riverside footpath following the River Duddon. This time however, we took the forestry tracks leading gradually up through Dunnerdale Forest. This wraps around the eastern, southern and western flanks of Harter Fell, and we followed it right around to the western side of the Fell. It is a lovely little Fell with hundreds of little crags and rocky outcrops. The path to the summit from the west weaves through these and quickly leads you to the keep-like summit area where there are several turret-like crags guarding all flanks of the mountain. After a nice lunch stop in the shelter of one of the summit crags, it was time for a bit more pathless activity through long cotton grass and bog on the eastern side as we headed back down towards a now mostly felled area of the forest near Castle How. This little crag rose above the River Duddon immediately opposite the bunkbarn, however in order to avoid a steep hack through deep bracken, we diverted northwards slightly to Black Hall farm and then back south along the River. Most satisfyingly, this enabled us to pass through (once again, as we re-joined the end of our route from Saturday) a field with the highest density of Hardwick's (sheep) that most of us had ever seen! Lovely little herdwicks.

A great weekend, thanks to Harriett for sorting out the bunkbarn and to Jim, Richard, Imogen, Lorna, Sam, Daniel Daphne, Harriett, Tom, Fran, John, Mark, Jenny, Andy, Ben, Calum and Steven for your company on this summer gathering in the hills.

Easter in South Wales

The Easter holiday, being an altogether mobile entity, can find itself cropping up in all sorts of seasons, and sometimes even provides a bit of all of them, excepting autumn perhaps. This year, falling in mid-late March, was no exception and provided the usual spice of sunshine, hail, snow and high winds. The University provides around a week of closure time, giving a nice little break mid-way between Christmas and summer. Our intentions had been to head to Pembrokeshire, via a couple of days in South Wales. The camping gear, along with wetsuits and climbing equipment was all loaded into rucksacks and suitcases in anticipation of an early seaside expedition. Over the first couple of days of our Cardiff visit we made it out for a sunny but windy day in the Brecon Beacons and met up with my Pentyrch crowd of friends at the wonderful Kings Arms village pub. The Axe Family base is currently a building site and we had the opportunity to view the progress on the new build, clambering around the interior of the timber-frame on ladders. It had progressed a long way since climbing the scaffolding on the exterior at Christmas.

Llyn y Fan Fawr, nestled below the sandstone scarp slope of the Carmarthen Fan in the western Brecon Beacons National Park.

On Saturday we had been due to move out west, to St Davids for the camping trip. However the weather forecast on Friday evening was promising a series of weather warnings for the coming few days with a return to heavy wintery showers and storm force winds, particularly around coasts. After some careful deliberation we decided to settle for the warm and dry option of staying put for day trips out of Pentyrch. The Cardiff half marathon was taking place on the Saturday, and Lindsey and Liz were helping out in the competitor base near to City Hall and the University. What a wild day for the runners. Imogen, Steve and I had elected to spectate in Cardiff Bay, and given the weather we certainly weren't fighting the crowds for a good view of the race. We pushed out towards the barrage from the imposing Pier Head building, intercepting the women’s elite race at the new(ish) Dr Who exhibition and attraction. After a section where the half-marathon route traversed the Port of Cardiff land, separate to the walking and cycleway that links the Mermaid Quay waterfront to the main barrage, it opened out onto the most exposed section facing right onto the Bristol Channel. We found plenty of space to obtain a perfect view of Mo Farrah and others in the mens elite race as they sped past us. Soon after, the main pack of the race followed, and rather unfortunately for the runners, they were greeted by the most violent of squalls battering across with almost horizontal rain carried on a ferociously cold wind!

Looking along Traeth Bach and Traeth Mawr towards Monknash on the Glamorgan Heritage Coast.

Sunday brought drier weather, with more sunshine and we explored the Glamorgan Heritage coast at Dunraven Bay, also known as Southerndown. Heading east from the ruins of Dunraven Castle and the more intact walled gardens the limestone cliffs leading to Monknash and Nash Point are particularly spectacular. The flat farmland comes to an abrupt precipice, dropping up to 30 m or so to the sands below. The Carboniferous limestone displays fine layering, and in places there is fresh evidence of slips and rockfall. All the more reason to keep a good distance back from the edge, especially in the swift NW wind. There are several locations where it is possible to access the beach. We dropped onto the wave-cut platform that extends out from the Monknash valley and headed back West towards Dunraven Head across the large area of sand exposed on a falling tide. The dogs had a great time bounding around on the massive expanse of beach, even Diva enjoying some off-lead time! Both Diva and Jess are not keen swimmers, Toffee on the other hand can’t be kept out of the water on beach visits.

For our Easter Monday outing we headed coast-bound again. This time, further west to the Gower Peninsula. The Gower has some great beaches and coastline. Most well-known is probably Rhossili at the far West, with a large expanse of sand stretching several kilometres from Rhossili Head to Llangennith Burrows and Burry Holms island. On the inland side, the land rises rapidly with the heather-clad Rhossili down providing a wonderful backdrop. Beyond Rhossili Head is a tidal causeway leading to the undulating Worm’s Head. We parked up at the Llangenith end and started our walk by ascending up and along the downs. The stiff NW wind was prevalent once again, and in the clear air that such airflows often bring, the Carmarthen Fan in the Western Beacons could be seen with fresh snow on top. After Liz had taken Imogen for a quick browse of the National Trust shop at Rhossili, we dropped onto the beach to walk back towards the Llangenith end. The long beach walk and some good timing on the part of the succession of showers was helping to conjure up sufficient enthusiasm for the first swim in the sea of the year. Added to this was the opportunity to try out Lindsey and Steve’s boot tent; a tarp-like structure that attaches to the boot of their Vauxhall Vectra estate, providing the ideal changing tent for cold British days at the beach. It wasn’t long before Liz and I were clad in the wetsuits and making our way back down through the dunes for the fresh plunge. Llangenith is a popular place for surfing as there is normally some form of swell coming in on this due-West facing beachbreak. The water temperature was apparently a little over 8ºC, but we managed a reasonable session of body surfing and wave ducking before retreating once again to the relative warmth of the changing tent.

Rhossili Down and Bay, lovely sunshine but the clothing and white breakers on the sands below say something about the wind!

Heading into the cold March water at Llangenith

Next up was a trip to the imposing ruin of Carreg Cennen Castle in Carmarthenshire. This involves a fair-run out west to the end of the M4 from Cardiff, before turning north to Ammanford and the increasingly hilly and wooded country of the western Brecon Beacons National Park. The castle is worth a couple of hours of exploration, most notably for it’s subterranean dungeon, an interesting blend of man made passageway and natural cave. Visitors are free to clamber down and explore but a torch is essential for the deep section as there are no lights down there! The castle sits proud atop a limestone crag with good views of the surrounding approaches. After looking around the castle, we took the signposted woodland walk that descends to the valley and follows the Afon Cennen river that runs along beneath the steep limestone cliffs. As we crossed a field of sheep and new born lambs, a heavy shower starting as rain but rapidly turning to sleet piled in. In order to make a grand circuit for the days’ tour, we took the country route back across winding lanes via Talybont Reservoir and Sennybridge to the A470 near Brecon. We had some good views in sunshine between the heavy showers of fresh snow on the hills.

Carreg Cennen Castle

For our final day of the holiday, we went for a lovely walk in the countryside that surrounds Pentyrch. It’s always nice to have a walk around the woodland and hills that were my immediate backyard when growing up. It was even starting to feel much more like spring in absence of the cold winds of the previous days. The valley that leads from the village of Pentyrch down to the Taff contains a lovely deciduous woodland, Coed-Y-Bedw, which is managed by the Wildlife Trusts. To the north is the mountain known simply as Garth, this, of course assumes you are using the definition of a mountain to be the most prominent point on any ground above 1000 ft. Indeed, the debate as to whether Garth is actually a hill or a mountain is played out in the film ‘The Englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain’ starring Hugh Grant. Either way, the view from the Garth is certainly of mountain standard. As the first prominent high point north of the Severn Estuary at Cardiff, the vista extends from Exmoor and Brean Down through the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm, all of the South Wales valleys of world fame for the carboniferous coalfield that sits beneath right up to the twin peaks, Pen-Y-Fan and Corn Du of the Brecon Beacons.

A lovely Easter holiday and great to see Lindsey, Steve and Liz before our big wedding expedition to Scotland in April. We were certainly pleased to arrive back in Lancaster with nice dry and clean camping gear. No need for days of tents draped out in the kitchen for several days this time.

Hills, Trains, Beer... and the stag do of Darren Neil Axe

These are three things that may or may not frequently appear on the tick list for stag do's these days. Hills, they're pretty mainstream these days and the pursuit of hill bagging seems to be one of those peculiarly male dominated persuits; one that wives can only roll the eyes at when it is announced that another bleak, rounded, mist shrouded hill must be ticked from the list. Trains; it's a well known fact that all boys aspire to be train drivers when they grow up and of course not many actually do so the rest are left with a feeling of excitement every time they hear the sound of a locomotive whistle on the wind. Beer; I'm sure there is no need to describe the association between that one and stag do's, that is except for the fact that a fine Scottish ale from the Cairngorm brewery goes by the name of 'Stag'. Enough said.

All gathered at Dolwyddelan station on the Saturday morning awaiting the train to Blaenau Ffestiniog.

It was under the notion of these three commodities that I managed to bring together 21 of my fine fellas to the small village of Dolwyddelan in North wales for my stag do in mid-March 2016, exactly 5 weeks before our wedding. For those setting out from Lancaster on the train on Friday evening it turned out to be a rather entertaining journey as even without the usual stag paraphernalia such as group antlers, we still managed to attract great interest from those around us. Firstly a drunk passenger headed for Preston on board the Llandudno Junction train (!) who took a strangely intense interest in the two physicists among us. Secondly, after missing our bus at Llandudno Junction and deciding to wait out time for the next train in the Old Station Hotel, we once again proved quite an attraction to the locals next to us who most of all seemed fascinated that we were headed for Dolwyddelan for a stag do! Luckily for them, most of the others had had relatively benign journeys and we all congregated in Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan for evening beers.

The southern portal of the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel surrounded by the slate spoil dominated landscape of Blaenau.

Saturday morning, the chaps were awoken on the dot 06:30 to a soothing series of blasts on one of my railway whistles. The early start was to enable us to get organised for the first activity of the weekend; crawling around inside a hollow hill. We were headed for the newly opened 'Zip World Caverns' a series of ladders, bridges and zip lines in the disused Llechwedd slate caverns at Blaenau Ffestiniog. This, of course was preceded by a compulsory bit of trains, with us all catching the Conwy Valley line train through the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel through to the aforementioned slate mining capital of the world! It was an appropriately grey and cold March morning, adding to the drama of the slate laden hillsides as we arrived triumphantly at the marvellous station where Network Rail and Ffestiniog Railway metals lie side by side. The Llechwedd Caverns are the product of the Welsh slate rush and following the decline of this heavy industry from the 1960's onwards, have provided underground tours for visitors. The development of adventure tourism within this post-industrial landscape is a relatively recent thing, with there now being downhill mountain biking, outdoor zip wires, the caverns Via Ferrata and the evocative 'bounce below', essentially a massive underground trampoline. Blaenau has long needed a boost, having originally been left out of Snowdonia National Park, and walking around the town it certainly felt like things were on the up. After a thorough training session with an instructor, we were all let loose on the main cavern exploration. It starts in a vast hollow, with a series of zip lines that gradually descend into the depths of the chasm, crossing piles of slate spoil and flooded hollows. There are then a series of narrower passageways, bridges and further traverses on solid Via Ferrata rungs that link several smaller caverns. It's all rather disorientating and every now and then large openings in the passageway walls open out on the main cavern. The tour finishes with a steep climb over cargo nets and through vertical worm-hole like passageways back to the starting point, which is suddenly reached, somewhat anticlimactically. It's a wonderful exploration, and really gets you right into the heart of this impossible myriad of man-made tunnels and caverns.

Upon resurfacing to daylight, the barren, grey landscape of Llechwedd and its fellow spoils seemed intensely bright and sharp after several hours in the relative colourless abyss. However, after a quick lunch and march up the verge of the A470 to the Crimea Pass, the drab slate dominated landscape was exchanged for the usual parched, sepia tones of the uplands in late winter. The bleak Moelwyns are one of the lesser walked ranges in Snowdonia. We were getting in the next bit of hills in by ascending up and over the lofty 524 metre summit of Moel Dyrnogydd. After this, the most direct route down to Dolwyddelan involved a rather rough tramp over tussocky grass down into the relatively more benign sheep pasture dominated landscape of the valley. After passing a series of scruffy farms, with the first of springs’ lambs bleating and stumbling around we skirted Doowyddelan Castle and back to Bryn Tirion.

Entering the abyss of Llechwedd Slate Caverns

Our beer based entertainment had been orchestrated in the form of a train-themed fancy dress night thanks to Graeme, one of my best men. This had been taken on board to varying levels of enthusiasm, and the costumes certainly provided entertainment for the owners and locals frequenting Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan village. Thankfully we had been given our own room, off to one side of the bar, within which to keep ourselves entertained and enjoy a convivial meal and drinks. Given the demand for real ale, the single pump was dry by about half time and by full time, all supplies of a bottled St Agnes (Cornwall) brewery beer had been consumed. Last but not least, a big tick was placed in the beer box.

Traversing the cableways and gantries of the 'zip world caverns'.

After an action-packed Saturday, it was agreed that a lie-in would be granted for Sunday morning. No piercing blasts on the whistle to wake up to and no early trains to catch. We took on board hearty porridge once again and enjoyed the March sunshine that was breaking through. Rowan had organised a navigational-riddle based challenge for us that involved finding toy soldiers in hidden localities around Bryn Tirion farm and Dolwyddelan Castle. It had been promised to keep us all occupied for about an hour. However some of us  (me included) manage to miss the most critical element of the briefing session (that there were a couple of decoy locations on the list and also not to take the grid references bit too seriously) resulting in much frolicking around the moorland searching for the (un-)promised little plastic soldiers for significantly longer than an hour, much to the entertainment of the ‘winning’ teams. This activity, filled with much merriment drew the big weekend to a close and a prolonged period of goodbyes and departure then followed. For those on the train (via the mid-afternoon bus to Llandudno Junction as there is no winter Sunday Conwy valley line service), there was time for a picnic in the spring-like sunshine over in Dolwyddelan. For the Lancaster folk, our train journey back north was far less eventful than the Friday, just as well as we’d had just about enough excitement for one weekend.

And there we have it, hills, trains, beer, all successfully accomplished. The countdown to our wedding now officially commences.

On the top of Moel Dyrnogydd

en-route to the International Mountain Leader Award

I'm writing this on board the TGV Perpignan-Paris, returning from the Pyrénées-Orientales, venue for my IML winter assessment. We're now north of the the Rhône valley (the scenic bit) so there's some time between now and Paris to do some writing. Ironically, the TGV is zooming through a blizzard as we head North and my altimeter says just 336 m, although it hasn't been recalibrated since Friday. Quite a contrast to when Imogen and I arrived in Avignon two Saturday's ago to blue skies and almost 20 C! The winter assessment has concluded a two year journey through the IML scheme, and I'll take this opportunity to take a look back at the whole process.

Since starting out on the Mountain Training schemes, I had my sights on the IML award as an objective, as I was attracted by its strong emphasis on mountain journeying on foot and environmental dissemination to groups and clients. This area of mountaineering is what I had come to enjoy most throughout the past twenty years of exploring mountain environments at home and abroad. I started the training and assessment process in April 2014, with the summer training at Plas-Y-Brenin. The first step involves lots of intro and overview of the award content and is probably about 50/50 practical to theory. There is a 'hill day' and the usual steep ground stuff common to all the ML schemes. You also start the process straight off with a bit of assessment; the speed navigation test, although this is certainly not about speed as the name suggested and more about just getting round the course in a reasonable time. Many decide to go for it however and on my speed nav, we had candidates flying up and down the grassy north slopes of Moel Siabod. I took a more gentle approach and still made it back with about 15 minutes to spare. The great thing about the IML being a 4-stage process, with a limited number of course dates available at each stage is that you tend to meet some of your fellow candidates again further down the line. It's always nice to be on assessment with people you've met before and it gives a good opportunity for shared learning when it comes to preparing for assessment. 

Pas de la Cavale, 2735 m on the GR54 Tour d’Oisans, Écrins National Park, France.

The summer after my training, I managed to get out in the Alps twice. Firstly to the Gran Paradiso national park, doing some easy Alpinism and secondly to the Écrins, where I volunteered myself to lead a group of friends around the GR54 (Tour d'Oisans). The latter was perfect summer assessment prep and gave me some excellent log book days. 

Vallon de Chambran, Écrins National Park, France.

Winter training followed next in January 2015. Currently, these courses tend to be based in Le Grand Bornand (Haute-Savoie, France). It's a nice venue, at the Auberge Nordique, tucked in a deep valley below the Chaine des Aravis. The lodge caters for Nordic skiers as well as snowshoers and there a usually a number of groups in at once. The training was good fun and we got out to a variety of venues to look at the various aspects of the winter syllabus; snowshoe journeying, environmental knowledge, use of transceivers, shovel, probe, snow pack analysis and avalanche risk assessment, the use of ski areas and uplift and security on steeper ground. The snow conditions were fairly limited for most of the week at valley level, but a passing front mid-week deposited around 30 cm of fresh above around 1200 m, meaning we were able to find better conditions for the activities requiring deeper accumulations. The winter training was my first introduction to snowshoeing and the Alpine winter environment (as I had never skied), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Snowshoeing enables you to get away from the noise and crowds of the pistes and discover the forests and alpages in their natural winter state, peaceful and criss-crossed with animal tracks. 

Next up was the summer assessment, late August 2015. The good thing about the courses being limited in number is that it forces you to book early (as soon as dates are released), therefore giving plenty of time for preparation. I began my theoretical prep around late-May. There are lots of paperwork (although mostly computer these days) based things to tick-off in the lead up to assessment; the home paper, a leaders resource pack for the area, route ideas and on the hill talks or group activities to prepare. I found it invaluable, and also very interesting to put lots of time into this preparation. My assessment was based around Samoëns in the Giffre valley. It's a lovely part of the limestone pre-Alps, thrust upwards just to the North of the Mont-Blanc massif and Aiguilles Rouges. Thus there are great views from the various randonnées and tours in the area. I headed out a week ahead of the assessment, in order to get familiar with the area and visualise all the stuff that up until that point had all been rather theoretical. I based myself on the Camping du Giffre on the edge of Samoëns. I met up with another candidate, Ian from my winter training, who I have subsequently gone on to complete the award with this March. The prep week was incredibly useful, especially as there were two of us, and we were able to practice techniques, bounce ideas and have a go together at identifying flowers and trees. The assessment itself went well, although very quickly at just 3 and a half days with two nights up in refuges. Unfortunately we had some low cloud and drizzle on two days which was not what we had booked!

Summit of la Bourgeoise 1770 m, an accessible snowshoe peak in the Haut-Giffre valley, France with a spectacular 360 vista.

This left just one hurdle; the winter assessment. As my only experience on 'raquettes' was from the winter training week at Le Grand Bornand, I decided I needed to get out to the Alps in January 2016, to gain more familiarisation with the alpine winter environment and get in some logbook days. Luckily, I had already completed the winter ML in April 2015 and also had some overseas winter experience from New Zealand, but I was particularly keen to get more experience in the rather more unique world of snowshoeing and the rolling Nordic terrain in which it is generally practiced. For this, Imogen and I arranged a family trip back to the Haut-Giffre, this time to the little village of Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval. As it was booked for early season, we were nervous about snow conditions but luckily a big dump came in a couple of days before we arrived so conditions were perfect. On day 1 we were able to snowshoe down the valley in 40 cm of fresh powder. Later in the week, we had some wonderful outings at Morillon 1100 - Plateau d'Agy and the Joux Plane Col. We also managed to fit in a bit of first timer Nordic skiing. 

Snowshoeing in fresh powder snow in the Giffre Valley near Sixt-fer-à-Cheval, France.

And so this all leads into late February this year, when Imogen and I boarded the direct Eurostar London - Avignon, starting out on a two week venture to the Pyrénées that would include the final stage of my IML assessment. I had once again spent many evenings and weekends on the computer, sorting out all the theory/paperwork stuff. This time around, a vast amount of time had been devoted to the daily Méteo France Avalanche forecasts for the Pyrénées-Orientales, which helped tremendously in terms of building up a picture of the snowpack through the winter. After spending one night in Avignon, we continued our journey South, this time on the Spanish AVE heading for Madrid. This deposited us in Perpignan, where we headed west and uphill into the Pyrénées. At the town of Villefranche de Conflent, just where the valley of the Têt narrows and steepens, there is a change of train and gauge onto the historic 'Train Jaune'. This winds its way up over 1000 m of ascent from the Conflent to the Cerdagne plateau. For the prep week, we were staying in the village of Egat, near Font-Romeu. We had settled for a campsite as all the other accommodation in the town was fairly expensive. Luckily, the campsite had a heated toilet block, although when we arrived, air temperatures were up at about 14 C! My fellow candidate and colleague on the IML journey, Ian was also in the area early and we made the most of the prep week to cover all the various syllabus topics and also get our eye into the local environment. The Pyrénées-Orientales is a very different mountain environment to the Alps, being a high open plateau with granitic tors forming mostly rolling mountains with a high tree line. However there are a number of more spikey ridge lines and cirques that form the backdrop such as the Pic Carlit, Pic Peric and Cambre d'Aze. At the very end of the prep week, a top up in the snow arrived. Overnight Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, around 50 cm of fresh snow fell at 1500 m. This provided the ideal starting point for the assessment. I moved indoors to the base for the course, El Mouli del Riu at St Pierre dels Forcats on Sunday. The base was very comfortable and the food was great. The IML group had sole occupancy which meant the whole course was much more convivial. Three assessors from Plas-Y-Brenin oversaw us in groups of four candidates. The assessment itself progressed very much as expected but with the usual assessment nerves and the extra pressure of this being the last step made for a long and full-on week. We mostly had sunshine, but the dominant airflow was a swift Northwesterly, which made for somewhat cool conditions and even one day of almost Scottish conditions; luckily we were doing emergency shelters that day so had a good hour out of the weather inside those. There was certainly plenty of transceiver work, but leadership and environmental knowledge were vitally important, as was competence in steep ground security and reading the terrain. By the end of the week, we were all pretty drained so it was a big relief when we boarded the minibuses for the last time and headed back to the lodge for results. 

All in all, the IML scheme has been a wonderful journey and it's great to feel the jigsaw gradually coming together as you progress through the various stages. If you're thinking of going for it, or have an upcoming assessment, drop me an e-mail. Alternatively, if you're looking for a custom-made summer alpine trek or winter snowshoe adventure, please get in touch and I would be delighted to discuss your requirements.

On a typical snowshoe route in Formiguères, Pyrénées-Orientales, France.