2016 Round Up

2016 has been a busy and hectic year here! Most of my time in the UK has been at home in Pembrokeshire, but UK work has also taken me to the Brecon Beacons, Snowdonia, Dartmoor and Scotland. Overseas work and personal trips have seen me visit Finland, France, Spain, Mallorca and India. This has all been a mixture of climbing, trekking, skiing, running, road and mountain biking, surfing and coasteering… 2016 has been a fun year, full of changes and new directions, and there’s still 1 more trip left – to Utah! Here I’ll try and give a whistle-stop tour of 2016 and it’s highlights!

The start of 2016 saw us skiing in a very cold Finland… For my 30th! Feeling old in the cold…

Then up to Scotland for the rest of the winter, mostly running our Winter Skills Courses, but fitting in some great days climbing and some AMAZING days ski-touring! I did my MIC training too, so another professional award to work towards now!

Over the Winter our application with Mountain Training to provide Single Pitch Award Training and Assessments was successful. We delivered our first of these in the early Spring. This was a really proud moment for me! We had a great year running plenty of SPA Training and Assessments!

Early on in the “season” here in Pembrokeshire, I visited the centers I act as Technical Advisor for. I ran training sessions, reviewed their Risk Assessments and Operating Procedures to improve upon the previous year, and ran staff sign-offs on High Ropes Courses and sea-cliff crags outside the SPA remit. Always great to work closely with other local providers.

Somewhere in there we spent a month in the South of France on a personal climbing trip. The Verdon Gorge, Les Calanques and Sainte Victoire were all major highlights! How had I left it so long before going to Verdon!!! What a place..

With the Summer kicking in we were flat out working both for other providers and running our own stuff. School groups, DofE, taster sessions – climbing and coasteering mainly!

Throughout the year we were delivering lots of our Learn to Lead Climb Courses and Sea-Cliff Rescue Skills Courses alongside Guided days out Climbing. We had lots of return clients which is always nice, but plenty of new faces too  – many of whom have already booked on to our other courses.

I ran a month long exped to the Indian Himalaya again (my 4th time), with a great bunch of British College kids, for World Challenge. We had a highly successful trip to a remote area of India – a great long trek up to 5500m.

A personal climbing and biking trip to Mallorca was quickly followed by a work trip to Costa Blanca for Rock and Sun. Both brilliant venues for a late Autumn escape from the depths of British Winter! Good food, dry weather, relaxed atmosphere and loads of rock!

Whilst on trips or at home, I snuck in as much personal climbing as possible! Plenty of great routes and some new routing in Pembrokeshire as always. Some good new routes but plenty of awful ones too! (loose rock, lichen filled cracks, dodgy abseils etc..!) All good fun!

In the quieter periods time was spent on the computer developing the website and social media – all boring necessary evils! But we have been thinking about new ideas and activities – and from 2017 we will be offering “Cliff Camping”, overnight Portaledge camping on the Pembrokeshire Sea-Cliffs. Hopefully it’ll take off so spread the word!

Cliff Camping in Pembrokeshire

The start of 2017 will see us in Utah, getting some good ski-touring and ice-climbing in. Then it’ll be Scotland for our Winter Skills courses (and more skiing and climbing!), before it all starts again, probably much the same as 2016! Confirmed work trips over-seas include being Summit leader on Kilimanjaro for World Challenge and a trekking trip to Nepal. Personal trips in the pipeline include Ice Climbing in France, Ski Touring on the Troll Peninsula in Iceland and any number of ideas in my head!

So thanks 2016, and here’s to 2017 being just as good!

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