Sandy Paterson Mountaineering

This is a blog of my personal and work climbing along with all the other things I do in the outdoors. Please feel free to have a look at my main website.

Over winter I will try and blog at the end of each week, however I will aim to tweet each day so feel free to follow me @SandyPMIC



http://www.sandypaterson.co.uk/

Friday 19 August 2011

ML Assessment - Tour of the Tops!

I have been at Glenmore Lodge this week working on a Summer Mountain Leader Assessment. The weather has been a mix of showers and sun with the odd swarm of midges to eat us, but on the whole it has been a good week. Monday and Tuesday saw us in and around Sneachda looking at emergency situations, river crossings, party management, steep ground and unplanned use of the rope. We then spent 3 days out on expeditions starting from Rothiemurchus Lodge and headed up onto the Braeriach area were we spent the night. On day two we headed along the tops in poor visability and dropped down to Corrour Bothy before heading back up to Ben Macdui. Night two was spent just north of Ben Macdui and we did some night navigation around this area as well. This morning we walked out to the Ski Car Park.

Sorry no photos this week, I work on the basis that on assessment people are already stressed enough without me sticking a camera in their face!

Wednesday 10 August 2011

A week in a Freezer

The last 10 days have been busy with weddings and visiting friends, however I have managed to squeeze in a 5 day ski instructors course (BASI Level 1) at the Tamworth Snowdome. The 5 days look at both your own personal performance as well as how to teach beginners and intermediates to ski. The 5 days covered both training and assessment which I am glad to say I passed.

I now have a few days off before working on a Summer ML Assessment at Glenmore Lodge next week. Fingers crossed the weather improves.