Robinwood staff training 2013

Robinwood staff training 2013, a set on Flickr.

Another delightful week of work! Coaching highly motivated and supportive staff from Robinwood Outdoor Centres. The mission was to help staff develop their confidence and skills using single pitch venues in North Wales. We spent the first two days on esoteric but beautiful crags in Nant Gwynant and at Moel y Gest, and then grabbed some slate routes between showers and finally enjoyed some showery adventures at Penmaenhead on their way home.
My most exciting moment personally was enduring a deluge two metres above a bolt on the upper crux of Hotel 70, possibly the most "run-out" 6c in the area!

Climbing Development Pilot workshop

Coaching Development Pilot workshop, a set on Flickr.

The North Wales Climbing Academy coaches attended the pilot coaching development 2-day workshop this week. This course was delayed for various reasons, but the general feeling was that any earlier would have been premature for the personal development of most of the candidates. A really enjoyable and useful course; I am confident that we are onto a winner with this one. All that remains now is to pilot the assessment, finish the handbook and start recruiting more trainers in order to roll out the MTUK Coaching Qualifications. Another milestone day!

First Ascent of "Half a Dolphin" Great Orme, Llandudno

Sion Long on first ascent of "Half a Dolphin", Great Orme, Llandudno.
Originally uploaded by SteveMLT

One advantage of checking routes for guidebooks is that you often spot opportunities for new development. I abseiled into Dutchman's Zawn at Llandudno a couple of weeks ago to check the grades of some classic sports routes that have been languishing until recently re-bolted. On that occasion I climbed the excellent "Zawn Creature" and spotted a natural line with plenty of protection straight up the back of the zawn. Shortly afterwards a mother and baby dolphin swam by. So the chance arose for a closer look and I abseiled in with my son Sion. The result was a remarkably worthwhile "trad" climb which we named after one of my climbing heroes, Arthur Dolphin.

UIAA Mountaineering Commission meeting in Santiago

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Originally uploaded by SteveMLT

One of the highlights of the autumn of 2012 was the UIAA Mountaineering Commission meeting in Santiago, followed by a Training Standards seminar and a moderation visit to the FEACH rock instructor assessment course. Great hosts, great weather, great scenery. What's not to like? You can read the seminar report here.

Ski touring in Austria

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Originally uploaded by SteveMLT

This is the lovely area to the south of the Zwolferhorn summit near Salzburg. I was lucky enough to run some staff training events in perfect winter conditions. It was so good that I decided to start blogging again! We spent a day doing avalanche hazard evalution and then a couple of days on site-specific accreditation for some very experienced staff with excellent skiing skills.

Ogwen Valley during an MIA course

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Originally uploaded by SteveMLT

I helped out on an MIA course earlier this week; a great opportunity to meet candidates and also work alongside some old friends. Later in the week I also delivered an AMI Trainees workshop. I do feel that its important for the technical staff to stay current with the qualifications; it certainly makes it easier for me to justify my position within Quality Assurance.

This year has been unbelievably busy for me, which is why I haven't been updating the blog regularly. I will probably just cancel my efforts to run one for Mountain Training and just maintain a personal blog in the future. Its so easy to output pictures from Flickr into this blog, so as this is not regarded as a useful part of the MT social networking policy I will just continue to use it for myself. Not sure if anybody reads it anyway!