Based in Snowdonia, North Wales we provide a range of low ratio Rock Climbing, Scrambling and other Mountain based courses, such as learn to lead climb courses, intro to scrambling courses, mountain leader refreshers, private guiding, coaching and lots more! We are also a Mountain Training approved provider of the Single Pitch Award scheme.
We choose great course locations in Snowdonia and across the whole of the UK to best suit your specific aims and needs. Find out more about the courses and how to book by looking around the site or getting in touch and check out our Testimonials page.
Are you excited about rock climbing? There’s something unique about the challenge of being on the rock face and it requires some unique skills. Learn these with Jez on some stunning crags in Snowdonia, North Wales.
Want to tackle some exciting Scrambles or get into Winter Mountaineering? Maybe embark on the Mountain Leader Training Scheme or just have a great week in the mountains learning new skills? What ever it is explore this section for ideas…
There are a number of Instructor Training Courses out there these days, but this one is very different to most. Instead of focusing on many different activities, we focus on what we know best – Rock Climbing and Mountaineering.
The summer season has been a busy one, my busiest yet, which makes me really happy, but a little tired!
July was a bit mad, only 3 days off – not something I aim for, I normally like to achieve a better work / play balance, but I’ve had an absolute blast at work!
The work numbers:
61 days teaching / coaching lead climbing
15 days working on Mountain Leader courses
14 days directing our Single Pitch Award courses
11 days teaching roped scrambling & alpine preparation
5 days running Mountaineering Instructor Award refreshers
5 days working with a school group
4 days DofE work – I used to shed loads of this!
4 ML refresher days
4 SPA refresher days
2 Self rescue for climbers days
The personal numbers:
89 routes (up to E4 trad, 7b sport)
72 sessions down the wall
6 days of continual professional development courses
Phew!
It’s not all about the numbers though… All our clients have been flipping ace and made each and everyday a pleasure. We’ve had people from 18 (Lewis getting his first trad leads) to 69 (Jeremy training for the Matterhorn), and courses from the navigation stuff through to people wanting to take their climbing grade to the next level. We’ve had wet days with water running down our arms in the mountains, we’ve had scorching days slapping on the sunscreen whilst climbing on sea cliffs, an amazing variety of weather, location, people and courses.
We’ve had some great feedback too, which it’s a real privilege to receive – check out our testimonials page.
I’ve got another two very busy weeks, and then I’ve got two weeks off for climbing, to try and put some of this training to good use. After that we’re pretty busy right up until the end of November, after which it’s off to Spain for a month or two for some (hopefully) sunny sport climbing.
Massive thanks to everyone who’s been part of this year so far!
We do still have some space for bookings, so check out our courses or give us a shout.
As usual check out our Facebook and Instagram pages for more regular updates.
I remember the days of trying to climb something at my limit, be it indoors or outdoors, where my warm up would consist of an espresso, waving my arms around a bit, climbing an easy route, then wondering why I got pumped out of my box and climbed terribly.
It was pretty simple really, my warm up routine was lame, pointless really. Sure, these days my warm up might be a bit different depending on whether I’m jumping on a low stress E1 after work, or headpointing an E4, or redpointing that 7b+, again, but I’ll be doing a warm up of some description for sure.
Looking out the window at the drizzle means one thing, no two. Firstly, no excuse not to go down the wall for some training and secondly no excuse not to write a blog about something… Normally my blogs are super easy to write, this one’s a bit more complicated, requiring more thought, but here we go, just bear in mind this is a massive subject, so this is really just an overview – the internet is full of great articles, and some utter rubbish as well.
For years I was kidding myself “off down the wall to get strong” I’d say, rubbish. Is going down the wall with a mate and doing a few routes training? No. I’m not saying it’s pointless, it’s great fun and you’ll get some benefit, as you will from any climbing, but don’t kid yourself it’s training. Sorry about that.
