Longchurn Cave

Today I was working for Real Adventure who where doing an activity day for Apple Tree School. Apple Tree opened in 1995 with a mission to help support young children whose lives have been severly disrupted to grow socially and emotionally and learn to cope with school.
We took the kids to longchurn cave, through the cheese press and other obstacles. They seemed to have a great time and are hopefully looking foward to their next Real Adventure.

Practice

I am wanting to do my Mountain Leader Assessment and Guy has got his Mountain Instructor Award assessment booked. So we headed out to do some practice for these qualifications. Guy, Dan and myself went to Langdale and started off by Guy doing some short roping techniques on the North East Buttress of Harrison Stickle. After topping out we headed over to Pike of Stickle to descend a Grade 2 scramble found a rock climb back up to the top , which felt about V.Diff. Then got the map and compasses out for guy to test Dan and I on our Navigation.

Summer Nights

So yesterday I spent the entire day inside staring at a computer, which was very boring. In the evening I decided to camping in Langdale and took a tent up to Stickle Tarn. On arrival it seemed I was no the only one with this idea, so I kept going until I got to the top of Pavey Ark.

After the sun went down I did a bit of night navigation which was quite easy because I didn't even need a torch. Also what was interesting was the colour of the Moon, I have never seen it so orange before.

Robin Proctors Scar

So after another day at Ingleborough Hall Dan and I headed round to Robin Procters Scar. This is a Limestone sport crag five minutes walk from the centre. We warmed up on Central Buttress (6b), then top roped Forever Young(7a+) and the climbed living the dream (5). To finsih off Dan led up The Shield (6c), this is a fun wee route which has some of the holds held on by glue.
As I trying to figure out the crux my arms began to tire so I told Dan,
"Just take there man,"
"No,"
"What?"
"Am not gonna let you not get this clean keep going,"
"No seriously man, Take"
"No, hurry up and get it done"
Not something you really want to hear your belayer say but it worked and I did get it clean so I was quite pleased with that.
More Caving tommorrow

Ribble Violin

"All right guys so today we are in a place called Ribble head and that bridge there is. Well it's not a bridge it's a, can anyone tell me what that there is?"...."It begins with a v",

"Violin?"

"No, close, it's not a violin its a viaduct."

You've got to love it.

Anyway Dan and I where working for Ingleborough Hall, an outdoor centre based in Yorkshire. The morning started off by going out to Ribble Head to do some caving there. We took the group into thistle cave, which they all really enjoyed, Dan gave his geology classes inside and told the group how the caves came to be. Then he let the would be cavers go and explore some caves on their own.

Stalactites inside the cave
Me in Thistle cave

It's a Mini Adventure

So this week I have been on lots of mini adventures with Ambleside Primary School. I was taking the 'ankle biters' and the 'knee highs' on scaled down adventures. While John was taking the older kids on Real Adventures So we took the little one's into Rothay Park. Where we had: a tree swing, a scramble and a rock climb set up. This was all minature though so what was a knee high stream to me, was a challenging ghill scramble for them. We also got the kids to build dens where they could have their lunch and then build Dens for the woodland fairies out of twigs.
Another admin and office week next week so lets hope the weather is nice for some climbing.

Pavey Crag

After spending a day sorting out the kit stores it was nice to get out in the English sunshine. So a group of us: Dan, Helen, Claudia , Alex and myself, headed out to Pavey Ark for some climbing. Helen and I started off on Rake End Wall (VS 4c***) but finished by an alternate pitch, The Rib Pitch (HVS 5a*). Whilst Dan and the others did The Bracken-clock (E2 5a, 5c, 5b,4a**).
We then followed them up Cappella E1 5b, then back ti-pub.

More Staff Training

I don't know how to describe this training day, it was definitely experiential learning. However it was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had. Abseiling into a hole in the ground then squeezing your way through very narrow passages, which open up into huge caves with amazing rock formations.

Dan and Chef de Speleology (Simon) took us (Kat and Me) into Lancaster hole to Wretched Rabbit: Via… Waterfall Passage, Main Stream Passage, Oxbow Corner, Minarets, Cornes Cavern, Snail Cavern, Monster Cavern, Stop Pot, Holbeck Junction and up Spiral Stairs.

As a none caver this means absolutely nothing to me, am also pretty sure that Dan and Chef had no idea where they where going it was all just pretty good guess work. It seemed impossible for anyone to be able to navigate their way around that hole.

Abseiling into Lancaster Hole

Kat and Me before setting off