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It was short day today as it was the last day of the course and we had to sort out the paperwork back at Plas y Brenin. It was another lovely day with a ground frost early on. The plan was to do some more micro navigation to the SE of the Pen y Gwryd towards Carnedd y Cribau. The day went well with plenty of interesting features to navigate to. The interview sessions went well back at the centre and everyone seems to be very positive about the course.

I was out on the last module of the Mountain Leader training course over the weekend. The intention was to camp but we had to make a decision earlier in the week to postpone that element of the syllabus due to the wintry weather. As it turned out it wasn't that bad but the decision had been made by then. We went over the the Moelwynion to carry out a micro navigation exercise (day and night) from Gelli Iago and made a circular route passing Llyn Biswail, Llyn yr Adar, Llynnau'r Cwn and then down passed Llyn Llagi. The weather was lovely and we returned to the car park by about 8 o'clock in the evening having ticked all the boxes.

We needed to cover the emergency use of a rope today so I decided the best place to escape the snow and ice was Tremadog. The roads were a bit sporty today with quite a lot of black ice about but it was just about OK by the time we left Plas y Brenin. We went over the the Belshazar area and the descent gully to do some practical work in ascent as well as descent. By the time the sun had worked its magic it was almost tropical!! The photo is of Meredydd demonstrating a South African abseil. We were particularly careful not to pull the ropes down at the bottom of the abseil so as not to damage the trees.

The weather seems to be against us for this course. As it is supposed to be a summer training award the content of the course has been compromised a little to accommodate the wintry conditions. We were going to conduct the camp this weekend but it was decide that we should postpone this aspect of the syllabus until next weekend in the hope of having more appropriate conditions. Today we covered topics such as hazards, rescue, improvised carries and preparation for ropes work. The photo is of the group carrying out a search exercises in the forest by Plas y Brenin .

I was over in Bedfordshire today to run a training course for instructors on a high ropes course at an urban outdoor centre. We covered subjects such as care and maintenance of equipment ropes course construction and inspection and also looked at the practical application of safety techniques and group management. It was too cold for me to take a photo so this one is from a centre in Wales. Boy was it cold!

I attended the ERCA conference during Wednesday and Thursday. It was a very successful and useful couple of days looking at various aspects of construction and operation of high ropes courses. It was also great to catch up with friends.