For example, this week just passed has seen me in the Breacon Beacons national park with some groups guiding up Pen Y Fan, for two days with a school from Croydon south London, some of whom believed the grazing sheep to be Lamas. We had one child ring his mum and request he got picked up as he had got his trainers muddy, to which the mother replied 'no'. I was in the Chiltern hills in Buckinghamshire with AtoZ expeditions assessing a bronze D of E qualifying which ended successfully though only just with my group cutting corners right through a farmers crop.
And this last few days I have returned from Snowdonia National Park where I was working for Pendine OEC walking a group of year 6 children up Snowdon, sadly the trip was unsuccessful due to the relentless rain and 50MPH wind. For those of you who are familiar we made it up the pyg track to just beyond the Minors rout intersection which was what we took back down after lunch in a bivy shelter. An incredible effort from the kids who had simple light waterproofs and hooded type layers, (we had enforced boots and spare layers).
Which led me to a reflection. How much can we reasonably expect a mother or farther to provide for there child to do one mountain trip that may well be the only time they ever climb a mountain? I as a child was blessed to do lots of outdoor type stuff like scouting and walking with the family, so usually had more then adequate fleeces and waterproofs. I do occasionally have a scenario where a child is holding out a waterproof coat for inspection, or indeed a pair of shoes/ walking trainers that mum or dad has obviously bought for the occasion and yet, are still not really suitable for the requirement. One child on our Snowdon trip had a brand new pair of snow shoe wellies that mum had bought for the Snowdon venture.
On Friday when we attempted the mountain there was a whole cat walk of clothing examples from sublime jeans, vest tops and short skirt combos to the rather enviable Arcteryx head to toe awsomeness. As to footwear again a whole variety, with some of the kids asking if they can do it in Convers shoes why cant we?! A busy week with entertaining moments and wonderful people in wonderful places.
I was head to toe in my Paramo and was very comfortable most of the day it did get to a point when even the Paramo didn't quite keep all the rain out! I was how ever still warm. Busy times with Bean Outdoors!
