Climbing Coaching in North Wales

The last 2 day have been spent with Colm and Dave in North Wales, refreshing old and introducing new skills.  Due to them both having some injuries, the grade of the routes was not important, but time spent on rock was.

Colm getting into it on Little Tryfan

Thursday was spent on Little Tryfan, where they lead a good number a pitches, did multi pitch abseils and looked at stance management.  It was a day well spent, with the guys saying it was the perfect day, which was much needed.

Elephant Slab providing tricky gear and food for thought

Dave enjoying the atmosphere on Rap

Yesterday we made the decision to head over to Anglesey to avoid the rain.  I turned out to be a great decision, as we drove through rain to dry roads and sunshine.  We went on to Holyhead Mountain to continue the theme from the previous day, and add a couple of simple problem solving techniques in there.  We rounded off the day with a quick ascent of Rap VS 4c*** on Castle Helen.  Sadly, Colm was a bit too sore for this.  Hopefully they get the weather to put all they've learnt into practise over the next couple of day before heading home to Ireland.

Dave living the dream

Busy Week Setting and CWA Training

This week has bee pretty busy.  The lead area at ROKT has been given a new look with friction paint, so I've been in re setting the 21m beast.  There are now a good range of routes from F4-7a+ to go at, with more to come.  There will be a couple of good trying routes soon to compliment the easier range that are already there.

Over the weekend I have been running a CWA Training for 5 candidates.  The mixture of venues (ROKT and Leeds Wall) really adds to the course, as well as the mix of experience from the candidates.  Everyone was very complimentary of the course and seemed to take a lot away from it.

I've managed to squeeze in a few sessions for myself indoors, so will hopefully get out and take advantage of these soon.

ML Training

Over the last few days I have been running part of an ML Training down in Wales for Mckinlay Mountaineering.  Thursday was a mountain day, so we head up the North Ridge of Tryfan.  We looked a lot at the boundaries between what is, and is not, ML ground, as well as route finding and navigation.  This was a great day and brought up some good discussion points throughout the day.

Racheal leading the way

Friday and Saturday were the Exped.  We started on the Nant Gwynant side of Snowdon and walked up the Watkin Path, before heading up over Yr Aran and on to camp beneath Snowdon.  We spent the day working on 1:50 and 1:40 maps, which presented a new challenge to the candidates.  Once darkness fell, we moved back onto the 1:25's and got to grips with Night Nav.  A long but very productive days.  In the morning we made are way back out taking in more nav legs on the larger scale maps and covering anything again that folks wanted.

Catch Up

I've been pretty slack on the blogging front lately, so thought I'd catch up.  Since the last post, I have run an SPA Assessment, a fair bit of route setting, staff training and Technical advisor work.

This weekend I was working in the Peak on an SPA Training Course.  A wet first day was spent covering group stuff at Lawrancefield, before moving to the Foundry for more of the same.  Day 2 was spent at Froggatt for all the personal climbing aspects of the course in the sunshine.

I did manage to grab a morning at Kilnsey with friends and Rose, which was reasonably productive.  A couple of quick hits on Metal Guru 7c, meant I now know the moves.  Next time with a warm up it should go quickly, I hope!