Well we had an easy top today, by utilising the uplift from the Anoach Mor Ski Area. Gondolas to 650m result. It reminded me of the classic tale of the Llanberis Community meeting, where it was suggested that we get some gondolas for the lake. One local pipes up in a strong welsh accent, “Its all very well us getting these Gondolas, but who’s going to feed them in the winter!”. Priceless.
Anyway I was back on the hill with Dave Evans, we seemed to grow in numbers, so we did some consolidation of the winter skills we did the previous day, this time of quite real terrain, in that we got a good layer of hard neve to practice step cutting in, and walking in crampons. The weather was awesome as well for a Scottish Winter Day. It seems this first group from Cotswolds have had a great couple of days training.
I had a chat with the Head of Training for Cotswolds, and it seems that along with the explosion of stores, they have also taken the expansion to help develop the staff, and now run regular training weekends out on the hill with a variety of Manufacturers from tents to clothing, like Mountain Equipment on this winter skills course. A million miles away from the days ten years ago when I worked in Cotswolds Rock Bottom in Betws, I was too scruffy for the Royal Oak STore!
Massive thanks again for PYB allowing me to tag along.
