Duke of Edinburgh Trip (May)
I work in a college in east Lancashire. Like other colleges, they offer students the opportunity to complete the Duke of Edinburgh award. Many students start this in high school and complete the "gold" when they are at college (or sixth form). For the students at my college, the D of E course itself is run by the local authority, but paid for by the college and with college staff in attendance for safeguarding purposes. Usually, the college representatives who attend are from the Uniformed Services division, which makes sense. But on this occasion, no staff from this division were available and there was a real risk the trip would need to be cancelled if a replacement couldn't be found. This would have costed the college money and would have impacted the students as this was their last training expedition before the final assessment the following week.
My manager asked myself and one of my colleagues in my division if we would be willing to step in. Of course we said yes. Really, we were simply there for safeguarding purposes. We were expected to camp overnight on the same site as the students and be on hand to answer the phone during the day if any issues arose. But given our interest in the outdoors, we asked if we could go on the walks. We were permitted to do this, but not as part of the same group as the students. Instead, the D of E staff would tell us where the students were going to be walking that day and my workmate and I would set off earlier and do the walk ourselves.
On day one of the trip, we travelled by bus from college to Borwick Hall, the site of an outdoor centre run by Lancashire County Council. I hadn't visited the hall before but I had done some walking around the area, as Lancaster Canal runs just along side it. It is an old building, quite impressive with a grand gothic feel. On the first day, the students were doing some theory work in the hall, learning how to read maps, devise a route and work out timings. After lunch they did some practical navigation around the local area, walking to the foot of Hutton Roof Crags in the Arnside and Silverdale AONB. The weather on this day was perfect.
On day 2 the coach picked us up and took us over to the lakes. The plan was to stay at Gillside campsite in Glennridding, which is at the start of a popular route up Helvellyn. The coach dropped us off at Hartsop village and the challenge for the students was to make their way from Hartsop over to Patterdale via the high ground passing fells such as The Knott and Angletarn Pikes. The students were not required to visit any summits, but I used it as an opportunity to bag a couple.
In contrast to the previous day, the weather was poor. The rain and winds were heavy and there was a fairly thick fog on the higher slopes. Once the coach arrived in Hartsop, we set off early whilst the students were still receiving their instructions. We followed the path that runs alongside Hayeswater Gill. Just before reaching Hayeswater lake the path fords the gill, but due to poor weather, the crossing had been destroyed. There was a sign directing us further up the gill to an alternative route but there seemed to be no other passing available. In the end, we made a decent attempt to cross the tumbling waters over the most promising stones but inevitably got our feet wet in the process. Later, we found out that the D of E party constructed a new crossing. Wasn't something that crossed my mind at the time, but one to consider in the future.
Hayeswater just below the mist
We then walked up the steep path bearing right to visit the summit of The Knott. The wind was quite vicious by this point so I spent mere seconds at the top before descending back to the flatter ground. We then followed the path to Angle Tarn and I made a quick beeline up the fell to visit Angletarn Pikes. The route then heads north west past Boredale Hause then leaves the open access land just beyond Rooking Hill. We crossed Goldill Gill to get to Patterdale then followed the road into Glennridding.
By this point the rain had dried up. We were expecting the D of E party to arrive shortly, but in the end they took around an hour and a half to turn up and when they did, several of them were quite deflated due to the harsh conditions they had endured. One of them was even on the verge of quitting and needed to be dissuaded from dropping out. To be fair to them, they had to carry a much heavier load as they had all their camping equipment and food with them, as per the rules, whereas we left ours in the coach that was to meet us later in the day. Moreover, they were forbidden from using GPS navigation. As a result, one of the teams made a significant navigational error adding significantly to their route. Although all of them were outdoorsy, some had not experienced camping and hiking in conditions like this and were not looking forward to sleeping in damp tents.
The plan for day three was originally another proper fell walk up to St Sunday Crag. But a decision was made, a sensible one, to do a less demanding route. The previous day had been something of a baptism of fire for some of the students and to put them through another difficult day immediately afterwards might have put some of them off coming back to do the final expedition in a week's time. The route we opted for was a walk starting from Aira Force car park, along the slopes of Gowbarrow fell, following the Ullswater Way to Pooley Bridge.
Again, we left the students to complete the walk themselves and made an early start. Around half way through we passed one of the D of E staff who was waiting at one of the checkpoints for the students. We had a conversation about how she ended up involved in the job. During the conversation, she suggested to me that I consider doing a level 3 mountain leadership qualification and look into a job in this area as she said I was a competent navigator on the fells. It felt good to get some recognition from someone who knows what they are talking about. Aside from a one day navigation course, all my learning has took place on the job, walking around and exploring the fells. I didn't tell her I was thinking of a career change, but I think she must have sensed that I would be much happier working outdoors doing something I enjoy.
I really enjoyed the trip and I am hoping to be able to continue taking part on them. But I have also taken to heart the advice about doing my mountain leadership. It's something I hope to do next year and I will then look into jobs. In my next post, I will write about my recent trip to Holy Island just of the coast of Anglesey in Wales.
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