Sunday 29 August 2010

Open Season at Gogarth

In case it has escaped your notice, the summer bird ban for climbing on the Red Walls at Gogarth is over. The Red Walls are an acquired taste but for those who are smitten they provide real adventure in an other-worldy location. Pride of place goes to Mousetrap as a British sea cliff classic. The crux pitch is actually well protected where it matters, with a wire at your feet and cam by your waist as you stretch rightwards to reach a series of corrugated chimneys. The rock is weird and disconcerting, but basically the red walls consist of underlying "cheese" with  baked coatings of relatively hard sandstone. The problem comes in the areas where the coating is missing. The chimneys are one such area, but they are studded with fins and spikes of a largely quartzite nature. You can drape slings over spikes and place nuts and wires between flutings, but its hard to be sure whether this would hold a fall, so the whole experience is heart in mouth from beginning to end. Like all good horror movies there's someething particularly uplifting about topping out from these committing adventures.

Saturday 28th August was reasonably dry so Sion and I set off up Mousetrap then for some reason that I no longer understand we continued rightwards on the relatively obscure line of "Bedlam". This was descibed in the guidebook as bold, which it probably was before the pitons snapped. Now its better described as "character-building". The photo shows Sion aproaching the belay of Bedlam; you can see the easy slab of Mousetrap behind him. Next time I'm going up the slab.

Friday 27 August 2010

Moderation visit to an MIA training course

Today I accompanied an MIA training course into the Ogwen valley for Day 7 of an MIA training course - these courses are 9 days long, providing an intensive week by anybody's standards! The candidates were bearing up well and all of them stated a preference for a single long installment of this nature rather than dividing the course into seperate weeks.
Three of the teams tackled scrambles on Glyder Fach, so I followed a team part way up Main Gully Ridge and then traversed across to Shark Buttress before taking a downward traverse back to Llyn Bochlwyd and back down to the A5 for an afternoon of paper work.

This weekend has a good forecast: see you at Gogarth?
 

Thursday 12 August 2010


Last week was the National Eisteddfod for Wales down in Ebbw Vale in South Wales. The Eisteddfod is still the largest festival of competitive music and poetry in Europe and lasts for 8 days, and is believed to date back to the 12th Century.

All events and activities are done through the medium of Welsh, so we joined Clwb Mynydda Cymru (an all Welsh mountaineering club), BMC Cymru (Access & Conservation Officer, Elfyn Jones) and the North Wales Outdoor Partnership to jointly run a stall under the banner of Mynydda (Mountaineering).

It was a good opportunity to build links between the different organizations and look closely about ways we can work together. Clwb Mynydda Cymru was successful in gaining more club members and also we discussed running leadership awards through the medium of Welsh in the future.

I had a few days of in the middle of the week and rather than drive home and back, it made sense to visit one of the best sea cliff climbing venues in Europe for some cragging.

Bryn Williams
MLT Wales/Cymru

Tuesday 3 August 2010

UK's Mountaineering Associations meet at Glenmore Lodge

Representatives from the Mountain Leader Training Association, British Mountain Guides, Association of Mountaineering Instructors and British Association of International Mountain Leaders met at Glenmore Lodge on 2nd August to explore ways of working in collaboration and to provide Mountain Leader Training with information about the way that its qualifications are used by their members.

It is hoped that in the long term this collaboration may also bring benefits in articulating to the public a more unified message about the scope and remit of the UK's range of qualifications for leaders, instructors and guides of mountaineering activities.

 
THE ASSOCIATIONS COLLABORATION WORKING GROUP

 
 This new group, gathered as a working group of the main MLT (UK) board, and is made up of representatives from the:

 
 British Mountain Guides - Mark Diggins
  • British Association of International Mountain Leaders – Issie Inglis
  • Association of Mountaineering Instructors - Tony Halliwell
  • Mountain Leader Training Association
 Through discussion it became immediately apparent that there are many ways in which this forum could enable all the Associations to work more closely together.

 
The group is chaired by Steve Long, Chief Officer with MLT and, during the first meeting, the following Role and Objectives of the group are being proposed:
Role of the Group

 
To support MLT by providing information which will:
  •  enable better understanding of how Award holders are currently using their qualifications,
  • how the Awards could interrelate more effectively
  • how the Awards might be more easily understood
Objectives

 
To create: 
  • Opportunities to share ideas
  • Clear and unambiguous information about the awards and assoications to the public
  • Mutually beneficial co-operation between Associations
Some Discussion Topics

 
 1.  To develop a full mutual understanding of all the current award processes
           a. Training and assessment
           b. How and where the Awards are used
2.   Professionalism, accountability and standards
3.   Effective ways of presenting the award structure to the public
4.   Ongoing development after gaining a qualification
5.   Collaborative communication and marketing