It must have been a slow news week for London, as Metro run a story from virtually a year ago. Remember the Wheelchair User abandoned on Snowdon, well thanks to a reader of this blog (Cheers Kevin) I have a PDF of the story.
Well I had another rest day, of sorts. I did head out for a bit of lunch before coming back to finish a piece on Altitude for my coaching blog. Having done that i tried to find a friend to cook for this evening, but unfortunately they were all heading out some place or another. So I ended up cooking for myself.
I set the Lamb roasting, nice and slowly, and headed out for a run round the lake. Its the longest run I have done for a while and I really felt the Fachwen Hill and then the slog back into the village. I did manage to keep running all the way. All good Cardio training though.
I came back and finished off the cooking, slow roast lamb, mash, brocolli, coliflower, peas and Yorkshire Puddings. The Yorkshires were puddings as well, as I forgot to put them on the plate. D’oh!
I have now started a Lamb Curry to freeze from the left overs, and I also have a very nice lunch lined up in the form of another lamb dinner, and some pancake ready for cooking tomorrow morning.
Result! All that good work from running straight down the pan!
I was giving my copy of a great new book that is so hot off the press, it probably isn’t in the shops yet, but by the end of this week I am sure that it will be there. The book is simply called ‘Nature of Snowdonia’ and written by my landlord Mike Raine. Published by Pesda Press a small local company that specialise in outdoor books, including the title ‘How to Climb Harder’ by yours truly, which is due out later this year.
Basically this book is a font of all knowledge when it comes to, well the Nature of Snowdonia. I regularly deliver Mountain Leader Mountain Days, and over the years have learnt many plants and animals to tell people about. To learn these I had to get quite a few reference books and often spend hours looking through them to find the exact species.
What this book does is bring together virtually all the plants, lichens, mosses, fungi, birds, animals, geology and geography of the area.All of which will help any hillwalker, mountaineer, climber or instructor have a greater appreciation of what there is in them hills.
For the scientist there are latin names, for the rest of us there are the common English and Welsh names. There must be thousands of species identified in this book, which is splendidly illustrated. If you like to know more about the Mountains in which we work, rest and play then this is possibly the best book you can buy, as whilst the Nature of Snowdonia is its title, many of the species will be found in the other upland areas of the UK.
I already learnt one thing from the book, and that was the process know as frost heave, which has been very present in the hill over the last month or two. I just forgot what the process is called, and there it was in the winter section. Which is another factor of this book, split into the four seasons, to help you find thewhat your looking for based on the seasonal changes.
To find out more or to buy a copy visit www.pesdapress.com.
Having joined the 21st century, by shopping with Tesco’s Direct, I had even more free time to go climbing. Whilst this labor saving service has its advantages, as well as a small cost, I have to say it is great, although I am starting to realise the small ordering errors I have made.
For instance I have somehow brought two large tins of syrup, and when I went to open my coffee this morning I realised that the coffee, was in fact not ground. So if anyone has a coffee grinder they can lend me, that would be great!
With that extra time I went to the wall, not once but twice. I had a early afternoon session doing some easy bouldering and routes. I tried not to get pumped because I was going back in the evening with Llion, Sarah and Katie for another boulder. The evening session lead to some nasty circuits. It was very social, as the Bangor Uni Mountaineering club were there. So the bouldering wall had a high objective danger of being fallen onto and falling onto people.
I had to dunk my hands into cold water after all that climbing. I feel that I need a rest for a couple of days. Not to mention a good hand cream, where is my moisturiser?
On Monday the 8th February I am delivering a Coaching Workshop for Instructors. If it runs like it did last year I will spend around two hours showing instructors which parts of there current practice is ‘coaching’ and help them to develop some more robust practices in skill aquisition.
As well as talking about the effects of anxiety on learning, and ways to combat this through a progressive approach to building confidence. If you are interested in attending this workshop then contact the Beacon Climbing Centre, I think these sessions are free to local instructors, but ask at the Beacon.
The beacon runs a series of evening courses for instructors, and make excellent forms of continuing professional development. If you are reading this and helped me out on my research project don’t worry I haven’t forgot about you I am in the process of setting a date for a coaching session for you guys, it will probably be Saturday 20th Feb.
I left an amazing party to ensure that I was up in time for another Dad’s day out. Today it was Llion, Ben, Martin and myself. Who aimed to find some rock and climb it. Our 10 am start didn’t look good as the cloud, rain and snow plague our approach to Tremadog, and the lack of any wind meant things would be slow drying.
An inspection of the Vector Buttress for a dry route or two revealled a considerable amount of damp rock. So we headed to venue B Hyll Drem, hoping that the girdle might be dry, but no. The whole crag was soaked again.
A tip off from Pat Littlejohn about a bouldering venue at Criceth had us driving very optimistically towards the Castle and a Snow Storm. The venue was soaked when we got there, but was way more impressive than it looked from the road. Martin stacked a load of boulder and Ben and I took some photos, rather arty for a bunch of climbers!
After two hours or more of driving around we gave in and went Beaconeering again. Felt strong, but probably because I have been going a lot. Started doing circuit for power endurance. I think my goal of 8a this year might well be a realistic thing, although must remember to train everything, running this afternoon me thinks!
I was invited to THE party to be at this weekend, well it was if you were a dirty minded oldish man like myself. Theme – Moulin Rouge, meant a guarenteed amount of flesh and corsetry for all to enjoy, plus the usually scuffy climber men were in there best suits as well. The Party was to celebrate Becci’s birthday, no I can’t tell you how old she is!
Becci runs business called Smart Climbing, that looks at applying a technique call ‘Mindfulness’ which is a form of mediatation that concentrates on developing a thought process that looks at being in the now, rather than worrying about what if’s. If you’d like to see what courses Becci offers then visit her Smart Climbing website.
If you know Ray, then I have been reliably informed that he has some killer shots of the party, from after I left (had to go climbing on Sunday!). When the girls were a little tipsy from bottomless glasses of Champagne. Anyway thanks for a great night Becci!
