Hillwalking Course March 2010

Hillwalking Course March 2010

Hi Scouts,

During the weekend of 13th & 14th March I attended a hillwalking course organised by County.

On the first day there was a technical session held indoors at County HQ. The topics covered included;

• Responsibilities
• Group management
• Risk assessment and emergency procedures
• Weather
• Equipment – personal and group
• Form M permit scheme and Scout association rules

We also measured out 100m and counted how many paces each of us took to cover the distance, which we would use the following day.

On the second day an outdoor practical training session was held in the Berwyn Mountains area in Mid Wales.

This day dealt with all the levels required for navigation assessment, along with steep ground and rope management and built on the lessons learned from the previous day.

The route covered Terrain 0 & 1 and was very steep in places. I was absolutely shattered at the end of it, but the views were worth it!

Topics covered included map reading, navigation, visual skills, pacing, timing, leap frogging, aiming off, attack points and dog legging!

There was snow on top of the hills and most of us got soaked by falling into hidden, water filled ditches in the ground or in deep, snow covered holes at the top!

Our instructor fell through one up to his waste as you can see in the image gallery.

The course was extremely rewarding and over the next few months I shall no doubt be teaching you all some of the techniques I learned.

Please click on the above image to see more of the pictures I took over the weekend.

Yours in Scouting,

Adam