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Canada 2012 - Youth Expedition… we are off!

At the weekend we had a successful first training session in Weymouth and Portland for our 2012 Youth Expedition to Canada. I’m excited to return to Canada with a group of young people as it was the location of my first youth expedition back in 1996 (have I really been running these trips for so long?).

As with all Leading Edge Expeditions we will organise and run the trip voluntarily and contribute our own payment to the expedition account. I have been a volunteer expedition leader with Leading Edge since 1996 and shared cost; ownership and accountability remain some of my core philosophies. Over time years I have had the opportunity to lead young people to some of the remotest parts of the world including Mt Rainier, Pyrenees, Alaska, Dolomites and Wyoming. These expeditions have been and continue to be a privilege.

On a personal note I hate the glossy outdoor education brochures that come into schools from commercial companies, talking about chance in a life time opportunities for young people. In my experience these are often little more than adventure package holidays with a massive price tag.

You can find out more about the Canada 2012 over on the expedition website (which is still under construction).

Below is the Trip Description:

The group will fly from the UK to Vancouver in July 2012 for a four-week mountain bike and open canoe expedition in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. The expedition will be self-supported throughout our month away in the Canadian Wilderness.

From Vancouver the group will head north following the Sea-to-Sky Trail to Whistler. From Whistler we will head off-road to the north-east piecing together forestry, reservoir and old mining tracks. We will resupply at Lillooet before heading north to the Quesnel. From Quesnel we will following the Barkerville Highway to the east before heading north again to the Bowron Lake Provincial Park.

The group will spend six days within the Bowron Lake Provincial Park where the main objective will be to canoe the Bowron Lake Canoe Circuit. This 116km chain of lakes forms almost a perfect rectangle with the lakes joined by canoe portage trails. We will be ambitious in our aims and after a wilderness briefing from the ranger circuit we will aim to canoe the lakes in five days.

On completion of our canoe objective the real fun begins. Using historic mining trails we will pick, push and attempt to cycle our bikes up through the Goat River Trail, over the watershed and down to Route 16. We estimate slow progress on this section of the expedition due to the extreme nature of the terrain and the navigation challenges involved.

We will then follow Route 16 and Route 93 through Mt Robson, Jasper and Kootenay National Park until we eventually get to Slocan. The final leg of our journey links Slocan to Vancouver. Using a network of disused Kettle Railways (including trestle bridges and tunnels) we will wind our way back to Vancouver roughly following the Spirit of 2010 cycling and hiking route.

A high environmental ethos will be applied throughout the expedition. We will be cycling and canoeing though designated wilderness areas. Expedition members will be expected to show care and respect for this unique environment.

Being safe and caring for the welfare of every individual is essential on any expedition be it a low level trip in the UK or the ascent of a mountain. This has always been a priority for us, and will continue to be so. High media attention on recent incidents has brought safety to the point where even measured, responsible risk taking is expected to be taken out the expedition equation. This sterile attitude only serves to hold back a young person’s personal growth. Life is about taking risks especially for the development of our future leaders. A Wilderness expedition is obviously a ‘risk’ activity but the skill of the leadership team will achieve the balance between safety and challenging experience for the young expeditioner. 

As always Initial training will take place before we leave the UK. 

This year we will also be using live tracking so you will be able to follow our progress on the Canada 2012 expedition website.

 

First Aid Course Refresher Training

I did my first First Aid Course when I was 14 and continue to refresh my certificate every three years (sometimes more often). I also did a spell as a trainer a number of years ago. I think anyone involved in teaching or working with young people should do at least a basic course (it should be part of Initiual Teacher Education).

For my three year re-fresh this time around I joined a Rescue and Emergency Care Course organized by Leading Edge Expeditions in Dorset. There were twenty of us on the course and although I wasn’t sure if I would know anyone – I was delighted to find some familiar faces from past outdoor education work and expeditions.

One of the other nice things about the course was the number of young people who were attending and also going away on expeditions this summer. This included groups who are off to Ecuador, Kenya and the Alps.

During one very funny moment on the Sunday afternoon was when we managed to convince one of the Alps 2011 expedition team to put the ‘Resusci Annie’ Tracksuit on. It actually quite suited her…

Three more years until the next up-date – I wonder what the ratio of rescue breadths to chest compressions will be in 2014?

Reflections from Alaska 2010: 6 of 10 – Rest, Relaxation and Re-packing

This is part of a series of posts about a four week youth expedition to Alaska that I led in during the summer of 2010.

There was no doubt about it after our trek in the Wrangell Mountains we were exhausted. The weather was punishing and our 55 mile journey had been both physically and mentally demanding. As I said at the start of this series of posts this was the hardest and remotest expedition I have ever done with young people.

After the trek we took our shuttle charter to Fairbanks Alaska and stayed at one of my favorite places in the world – Billie’s Backpackers!

I had stayed at Billie’s Backpackers in 2005 with a group of students from Knox Academy in Haddington. Joe, who was running the place at the time asked me if I would ever be back – I told him then that I would.

He greeted me from the bus with a beaming face announcing that, ‘I remember you’ and that he still has his,  'Knox Academy Expedition T-shirt’.

We stayed in Fairbanks for a couple of nights, ate, fixed clothing, fixed gear, fixed ourselves and bought supplies for the next leg of our adventure. Our biggest challenge was getting the weight of our equipment down – in the Arctic, where most of the travel is by small bush plane and you are charged by the pound!

After two days rest we headed to Bettles Air at Fairbanks Airport where we flew in two groups to Bettles Lodge. Bettles is a very small village north of the Arctic Circle where pretty much all Arctic Expeditions to the Alaskan Arctic are launched from.

We flew to Bettles in two groups and when we arrived pitched our tents next to the runway. The people at Bettles Lodge were lovely and could not have been more helpful – we ate in the Lodge during our stay and were treated to home made Pitza and also fresh sheefish.

We also took part in our Gates of the Arctic National Park Orientation. National Park orientation is compulsory for all groups who are going into the National Park. It involves a talk with one of the rangers, watching a video on low impact procedure and then an opportunity for question and answers.

Whilst at Bettles we also had the massive job of sorting out all our food for the next leg of the journey. This was no small task as everything had to be divided up and packed into bear barrels. Again we were concerned about weight and everything was cut down to a minimum. We also pumped up and tested the inflatable canoes that we would be using on the next leg of our journey.

In the evening we chatted to other people staying at the Lodge, read books and at 10pm most nights watched the huskies being exercised around the air strip. They exercised by towing an old VW Beatle – it was quite a sight!

From Bettles Lodge our aim was the canoe the Noatak River from its headwaters to Noatak Village. The headwaters of the Noatak were deep within the Gates of the Arctic National Park and about a 1 hour flight from Bettles. To get there we had chartered three float planes.

After a days delay due to bad weather we finally loaded up the first plane with as much gear as it would carry and off we went back into the wilderness.

In my next Alaska post I’ll talk about the early stages of our adventures on the Noatak River.



Reflections from Alaska 2010: 5 of 10 – Trekking in the Wrangell Mountains (Part Four)

This is part of a series of posts about a four week youth expedition to Alaska that I led in during the summer of 2010.

Trek – Day 7

The alarm went of at 5am and it was raining (what a surprise!). The good news was that the river was down slightly from the day before (we couldn’t hear the rocks moving!). We quickly packed our things and moved down to the crossing point where the path across was still marked with the rock cairns from the day before.

The river felt cold but we safely got the whole group across. We took no chances on the slightly deeper sections, making sure that we huddled together to protect the smaller members of the group. The river crossing was in about seven parts and we stopped at the other side to empty our boots.

Next we traversed back up the side of the Kotsina River until we crossed Roaring Creek and were able to start the first part of our long climb up the hill in front of us.

The guidebook description read,

“At first you can weave a path through the worst of the brush, but as you get higher, it eventually becomes a willow thicket  of uniform consistency, so just plough ahead. The secret of this sort of nastiness is persistence…”

The terrain was surreal and we climbed higher and higher up the side of the Kotsina Valley in head height willow. A few of the group got stung as we disturbed four hornets nests during our accent. Keeping a close eye on the altimeter at 3, 500 feet we started to traverse back round to the upper stages of Roaring Creek before dropping down to the creek itself.

The decent to the creek was horrible. The ground was wet and much of the terrain was on mud and vegetation. We had to be really carful with our footwork and I think we were all pleased when we finally made it back down to the river where we ate a late lunch.

From here we followed Roaring Creek up into a beautiful valley for about a mile before starting the steep climb up towards our final pass of the trek. The route took us through an old mining area from the gold and copper rushes of the early 1900’s – there were still a few artifacts scattered around the hillside mostly in the form of tins and wooden foundations.

It is funny, because in the UK I think these artifacts would be considered litter but in this part of remote North America they were definitely considered pieces of history!

The route went on and on and the ground got steeper and steeper. As we climbed to nearly 6000ft the weather and the mist started to close in on us. We kept telling ourselves that we must be near the top only to find another hill to climb or set of old mine workings to climb over.

Finally, at the top of one particularly large hill we thought we must be at the top as the ground leveled out. Visibility was practically zero and it was difficult to see where to go. I turned the GPS on as I waited for the others to catch up. As it was collecting satellites the mist cleared a little bit revealing a massive rock amphitheatre – I could see no way over the ridge in front of us and it looked vertical (perhaps even over hanging in places). The area became quickly nicknamed as 'Mordor'.

We had been keen to get up and over the ridge on day 7 but we had already had a massive day and the group was tired (and so was I!). It was also going to take a bit of time to investigate how to get over the huge obstacle in front of us. We made the decision to camp. Although there was no fresh water there were plenty of patches of snow around to melt and provide water to cook our dinner.

We left the group collecting water and Mark and I went off to investigate the route ahead. We eventually found a route over the ridge – it was steep (and not as obvious as the guidebook suggested!) but it would definitely ‘go’.

By the time we got back to camp everyone else was in bed apart from Clive who was busy cooking our dinner. The sun had dropped behind the rock wall and the temperature quickly dropped and we retreated quickly to the protection of our tent.

Sleep was difficult during the night as the wind picked up and battered us from every angle.

Trek – Day 8

It was raining and windy when the alarm went off. A quick glance out of the tent revealed that the other tents had been battered by the wind during the night. We decided to stay inside for another hour until the air temperature increased slightly.

At 6am I got out of our tent thinking the rain had stopped (I couldn’t hear it on the tent anymore) only to find out that it was snowing. It was time to get out of there – we packed our stuff away in record time and headed towards the ridge.

As the sun started to peer through the mist the snow storm stopped and we started our steep climb up towards the pass. This was the steepest of all of our climbs so far – but at least we new it was the last one.

Despite the weather the views at the top were spectacular and we re-grouped on the narrow ledge before starting our decent that followed some old sheep tracks down towards Nugget Creek. I have to admit that seeing Nugget Creek was a real boost in confidence as it meant that the worst of the terrain was over.

Considering the steepness of the terrain we made fairly fast progress down towards Nugget Creek and we stopped there for our breakfast. From here we had to follow the creek for another mile before we would try and pick up the remains of an old mining path. We had the GPS co-ordinates for the start of the path and although we had been very sparing with our use of the GPS (I’m a bit of a traditionalist!) this was one time that we were definitely going to use it. Otherwise finding the start of the path would be like finding a needle in a haystack (only harder!).

Getting to the start of the path was a bit harder than we thought – we had to do some more deep river crossings across Nugget Creek but eventually we made it.

The GPS took me to where it thought the start of the path was – but the actual path was not that clear (only a few people would have walked on it over the last 80 years!). So, using a bit of judgment, I started to pick a route through the willow and the brush where I would have built a path. Luckily we soon picked up the track and as we walked towards the Kuskulana River the path got more and more obvious until it eventually led us to an old mining road that was still littered with lots of interesting artifacts from when the area was mined.

After what we had walked on during the last eight days the old mining road felt like a motorway and for the first time we were able to walk at over one mile per hour. We stopped for a rest at Nugget Creek Cabin at about 6pm.

This was officially the end of the trek but we still had another 14 miles to walk along an ATV track until we reached out pick up point. We were being picked up at 8am the next morning! Even though the end was in sight we still had a little way to go!

After leaving the cabin and crossing the Nugget Creek for the last time we bumped into a family from Anchorage who were camping at the trail head – these were the first people that we had come across in eight days. We were very happy to see them and I think they thought we were mad after we showed them where they had come from on the map. They told us about a camping spot seven miles down the ATV trail (halfway camp) and we headed off along the muddy trail.

It was getting dark when we arrived and camped. As we were cooking dinner it seemed a million years ago since we had woken up in Mordor in the snow that morning!

We had seven more miles to go to our pick up point which we figured would take us between 3–4 hours. We set the alarm for 3am and headed to bed in a fairly cramped campsite.

 

Trek – Day 9

Rain!

The group was obviously keen to get to the end and I was the last to leave the campsite that morning. I slowly caught everyone up one-by-one as we walked towards our pick up.

The track was easy to walk along and for the first time in days I didn’t have to think about where I was putting my feet.

I arrived at the trail head at 07.30h and washed in the Strelna River and changed into my (slightly) cleaner clothing.

The group arrived one at a time and completed the final river crossing before getting to the trail head. There was a lot of laughter and a few tears (of joy!).

But we did have one problem, no pick up! Mark volunteered to carry on walking along to the McCarthy Road and returned about 45 minutes later with Edward our shuttle driver.

We loaded the van and started out eight our drive to Fairbanks.

I turned round to speak to the group – but realized they must have been a little sleepy! The picture below says it all...

In my next Alaska Reflections post I’ll talk about what we got up to before we flew north of the Arctic Circle to prepare for our canoeing journey.

Reflections from Alaska 2010: 4 of 10 – Trekking in the Wrangell Mountains (Part Three)

This is part of a series of posts about a four week youth expedition to Alaska that I led in during the summer of 2010.

Trek - Day 5

The alarm went of at 5am and I was feeling tired! Despite our previous long day we packed our stuff up quickly (in the rain) and started the push up towards Surprise Creek Pass – the second pass of our journey.

After about two and a half hours we reached the saddle before the pass and huddled in a small corrie, next to a stream to eat some breakfast. Halfway though breakfast it really started to rain heavily and we didn’t hand around in getting packed up, climbing up and over the pass and down towards Surprise Creek.

The guidebook describes the next part of the route in the following way,

“The next leg of the route, from the pass down to the Kotsina River, will present some very challenging route finding”

The guidebook was right! and to make matters even more interesting it looks like there has been some significant changes to the upper stages of the route since the brief guidebook description was written a number of years ago…. oh... and it was still raining!

Anyway, we stumbled, slid and slowly navigated our way down to Surprise Creek. We climbed up the other side and then completed a nightmare up, and down traverse until we reached a willow covered ridge that we new we had to follow down to the Kotsina River Valley.

The first part of the Willow was actually quite good fun as it was high. But then we had to drop down a steep scree slope into an unnamed river that flowed all the way to the Kotsina. The river was overgrown and it was almost impossible to walk along the bank. So in the end we did the only sensible thing – we walked and waded down the river!

Eventually we made it to the floodplain of Surprise Creek. It looked like a moonscape and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near this area during the snowmelt or ice break up. The water marks and flood debris on the trees must have been at least 10m high!

The good think was that the scoured ground was fairly easy to walk along and we picked our way through the bush to the Kotsina River. Again, it had been another long day or crazy terrain.

We pitched our tents by the river and it even stopped raining as we ate our dinner. I also took a bit of time to go though some of the food barrels of some of the young people – I was worried that they hadn’t been eating as much as they should (and we didn’t have a lot to start with!).

After dinner – it was time to tackle a more series problem….

If we were going to continue with our route we would need to get across the Kotsina River and it was massive. Glacial fed combined with a massive amount of run off from the last few days.

There was no way that we would be able to cross where the guidebook suggested and we hoped that the water level would drop during the night to make it a fairly easy crossing in the morning.

 

Trek - Day 6

I stuck my head out of the tent at 04.45 it had been raining all night and the river had dropped a little bit but there was still no way that we could cross. We needed a plan… but first we decided we needed a lay in (in any case it was Clive’s birthday). A 6.30am 'get up' was declared and I crawled back into my sleeping bag.

The group seemed to appreciate the extra hour and a half in bed (although Emily’s eyes looked a bit puffy!) and we had breakfast at the camp before briefing the group on the plan (that was rapidly evolving by the minute!).

Our first choice was to follow the Kotsina River up-stream. As we got closer to the glacier the river braided into three smaller rivers and there would also be less run off contributing to the flow. When it was safe to do so we would cross the river and then follow the Kotsina back down stream (on the other bank) before rejoining our route.

So off we went – the terrain was actually not to bad and we made fairly quick progress along the gravel bars towards the snout of the glacier. However, after about an hour we noticed steep undercut cliffs on the opposite bank. Even if we could cross the river there was no way we would be able to get around these cliffs on the way back? We were stuck… time for plan three!

 
Plan three consisted of us retracing our steps and seeing if we could find anywhere to cross downstream. If we had to we would have to abandon our route and either request an air pick up from a gravel bar or walk out of the national park another way via one of our planned escape routes.

Anyway, we walked back down the river past where we had camped the night before and carried on downstream. I was worried because I could see that in about three miles time the river was going to flow into a gorge and it would be a difficult climb to get around it.

Leaving the group to have some lunch Clive, Mark and I made several attempts to get across the river but it was just to deep and to fast. After one of our many attempts we decided to give up for the day – if negotiating the gorge was our only option we were going to need to do it after a rest. I got the group to make camp on a huge gravel bar and we collected firewood for a massive fire. The rain even stopped for a couple of hours.

While the group were drying out Mark, Clive and I took a wander down to the gorge. I wanted to see what it was like before deciding if we were going to walk along it or go around it. However, as we got closer we realized that the gradient of the river flattened out and the river got a lot wider before narrowing again into the gorge.

Standing on the bank we picked a virtual path through the river (it was now braided in about six sections) and decided that as we were wet already we might was well see if we could get across.

It took us about an hour to find a safe route – but we made it. Then we slowly retraced our steps and left rock cairns to mark the way for the next morning before heading back and rejoining the group who looked a lot warmer than us around a massive fire.

Our rest afternoon had cost us about half a day of time. But we now had a route and we were safe and warm – we were back on track to complete what we had set out to do.

In my next post I’ll talk about the last few days of the trek where we negotiated an old mining camp from the 1930s gold rush, slept in something resembling mordor and it stops raining for a bit and starts to snow!

Reflections from Alaska 2010: 2 of 10 – Trekking in the Wrangell Mountains (Part One)

Wilderness Trekking in Alaska is hard there are no paths and the conditions are unforgiving. On a typical Alaska Wilderness trek you can expect to negotiate tundra, cross glaciers, wade through rivers (there are no bridges), descend steep scree,  fight you way through thick willow plantations (bushwacking) and climb over high mountain passes. Navigation is hard, really hard and you can’t loose your concentration at all as the weather and environment can change very quickly.

We decided to Trek from the Wrangle Plateau to Nugget Creek in the Wrangll-St. Elias National Park. The route is documented in Greg Fensterman’s Hiking Alaska’s Wrangll-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. Greg describes the route with the following warning,

‘Very strenuous / advanced. Don’t try this one unless you have some solid Alaskan backcountry experience or use a guide’

It looked perfect for out needs!

The route was very challenging and we had awful weather for the seven out of the eight days that it took us to negotiate the route. This particular objective was without a doubt the hardest trek I have ever done with young people and the brutality of the terrain would actually make me reluctant to recommend it to other youth expeditions.

Here is the elevation profile:

Here is a breif description of what we got up to:

Trek – Day One

The journey to the start of the route begins in McCarthy. I first went to McCarthy 13 years ago and it hasn’t changed a bit. It has a population of about 42 people (less in winter!).

From McCarthy you need to take a bush flight to the Wrangell Plateau. It’s a short but pretty amazing flight where you get a good view of the route that you are going to be hiking out of over the next few days. Alaska Bush Plane pilots are some of the best in the world it constantly amazes me where they can land their planes.

It took us about seven hours to fly all of our gear and twelve people from McCarthy to the Plateau. The bush plane that we had chartered had to make three journeys with each journey containing four people and a pile of our gear. Packing these tiny planes is an art in itself as you have to get the distribution of weight right and make sure that things like sharps (crampons and ski poles) are not going to puncture anything. The bear spray gets strapped to the wing – you wouldn’t want that going off inside the cabin!

The Wrangle Plateau really was a beautiful  place and we had amazing weather for the flight out and for our first night out in the wilderness. We camped just north of where we landed near some glacial melt water lakes.

Mark and I flew out on the first flight so we could establish camp and then go and check out the route for the first day which would involve crossing Long Glacier. I was pretty pleased we took time to reckee the route that afternoon as it took a while to find a safe place so that we could decent to the glacier.

We enjoyed a lovely sunny evening on the Plateau - which was nice because we wouldn't see the sun again for over a week!

The large lenticular clouds over Mt. Wrangell were a bit of a give away here (this wouldn't be the first improvised geography lesson that we would have on this tour!)

Trek – Day Two

Wilderness Expeditions are all about routine and out trekking routine started on day two.

Each day for the next eight days we would get up at 5AM, pack up our tents, trek for 2 hours, stop and have breakfast and then carry on for the rest of the day. Trekking in Alaska is hard (I know I keep saying that) and our average speed was never more than one mile an hour (sometimes slower). Most days we walked until 6 or 7pm before establishing camp.

During day two we hiked north along the plateau until we got to a scree slop that would take us down on to Long Glacier. It then took us about two hours to safely get the group onto the glacier. As part of our equipment we all carried crampons and I also carried a small ice axe, three ice screws, a 30m rope, some slings and karabiners.

I protected the entrance to the glacier by setting up a hand line linked to carefully placed ice screws and then escorting members of the group along the line to safe ground. It’s a slow process but a necessary one to ensure the safety of all. Once on the glacier we spent some time refreshing cramponing skills and working on individual techniques before starting our crossing.

At the elevation we were crossing Long Glacier can be classified as a ‘dry glacier’ this means that at the time of the year we were crossing there is no snow on the glacier so there are no hidden crevasses. You are basically just walking on one large ice cube – route finding is important as there are still crevasses that are deep and too wide to jump across and bands of medial moraine make the use of crampons difficult.

We made really good progress across the glacier and until after lunch one of the group  twisted her ankle. The group her were superb - we applied first aid, divided up her equipment so she was not carrying any weight and then changed our crossing strategy so we could still move quickly but at the same time continue to share the load.

The exit off the glacier was a lot easier than I had thought and consisted of a short 5 metre ice cliff that was easy to climb down using the front point of your crampons. I set up a rope to provide a safety line for the members of the group who required a bit of extra support.

Next we negotiated the lateral morain and scree along the side of the glacier before reaching a magnificent ‘ice cove’ where a river flowed into the side of Long glacier. Large Ice bergs (fallen serac) laid all over the beach and we camped a little way back in case the glacier decided to shed any more ice during the night.

Despite the rain it was a pretty amazing pace to rest after our first hard day and we needed the rest! On our backs we were all carrying everything that we needed to survive (food, fule, tents etc...) for eight days - they were very heavy!

In the next post I’ll look at days 3 – 6 of the trek - when things get wetter, harder and we will never look at a willow tree in the same way again!

South America: 9 months in 11 minutes... [Video]

My cousin Simon (@simonwraight) is back in the UK (at least a while anyway) and I’m delighted to hear that he has agreed to keynote the Dorset Expeditionary Society Young Leaders Training Seminar that Mark Salmon and I are running next weekend (more info on this event on the Facebook group).

Anyway, he posted some amazing shots of his last nine months in South America (including Antarctica and Chicago!) as a nice little 11 minute vimeo video.

Worth looking at just to be inspired but also a great little clip to introduce classes to the diversity of people and landscape in wounderful part of the world.

I’ve embedded the video below:

 

Simon's Travels in South America from Simon Wraight on Vimeo.

Reflections from The Gates of the Arctic Alaska Expedition 2010 (1 of 10) - Introduction

I was recently described as being ‘mad’ by a colleague when I explained to them that I would be spending four weeks of my summer holidays with a group of young people in the Alaskan wilderness.

 

I think they were ready to called ‘the people with the white coats’ when I further explained that I had organized the expedition on a piece of blank paper and a few ideas. That I wasn’t being paid for my time while I was away and that I was in fact  funding my own way onto the trip and contributing exactly same amount of money as each of the young people. I would of course be accepting accountability for the group during the whole four weeks as we operated in one of the remotest parts of the world.

 

Well perhaps an experience like this is not everyone’s cup of tea but for me running and organizing youth expeditions has become fairly normal summer experience during the last 14 years.

 

Since 1996 I have organized and led nine youth expeditions of not less than 21 days to some very challenging environments. Many of these ventures have been approved by organizations such as the Dorset Expeditionary Society (where I am a trustee), The Young Explorer Trust and the Duke of Edinburgh Award. By not employing guides or local hosts and by relying on a carefully selected expedition leadership team I am able to keep the costs for the young people down while ensuring high standards of safety and care for all of the group.

I like planning, organizing and accepting accountability for these trips and spend hours preparing maps, researching expedition areas and working on the logistics. I select my expedition team at least nine months before we depart for the expedition area and spend at least six days working with the group in the UK and training the team before we depart. While we are away we operate as a close family ensure the welfare of all.

 

I have always believed that extra-curricular activities are one of the most important roles of a teacher and outdoor experiences are one of the things that really gives a school or youth organization spirit. I have learnt more about leadership and management from my summer adventures with young people than I ever have from a formal or academic leadership course.

 

My expeditions always have objectives for example with under 18s I have canoed the Bowron Lakes of British Columbia, Climbed Mt. Rainier in Washington State, Trekked the Wonderland Trail in Mt Rainier National Park, Climbed the Marmolada by Via Ferata and Glacier in the Italian Dolomites, Paddled Beaver Creek in the Alaskan Interior, Sea Kayaked 200 miles across the Prince William Sound in Southern Alaska and gathered data for research papers in remote parts of  Wyoming.

 

But as well as these physical and academic objectives I believe the youth expeditions that I run are mentally tough. It’s hard to live in the wilderness for a prolonged period of time and it’s the routine of wilderness survival and the  ‘thinking time’ associated with it that increasingly young people struggle to cope with.  For me the mental challenge remains the most important parts of a young persons development – after all if we can’t develop young people that are mentally strong what hope will we have for the future leadership of our society?

 

The ‘Gates of the Arctic’ Alaska 2010 Expedition had two main objectives. These were to trek in the Wrangell-St. Elias and to Canoe the Noatak River from its headwaters in the Gates of the Arctic National Park to Noatak Village a distance of nearly 400 miles.

Over the four weeks that we were away we were quite simply punished by the weather and Alaska threw every type of it at us from blistering heat, unforgiving rain and even snow. This combined with the being totally self-sufficient during both objectives and the remoteness of the expedition made it the toughest trip I have ever done with young people.

 

The group were well prepared and humor, teamwork and compassion conquered the hardship of the environment. We succeeded in both our goals and it was an absolute pleasure to work with such talent.

 

I’ll document the expedition in the next few posts.

Across Scotland by Mountain Bike (in winter?!?!)

Like all great plans this one started in the Winton Arms, my local pub in Pencaitland, East Lothian. Over the years lots of maps and guidebooks have been studied here and some of the ideas have even turned into reality, although there are many more that remain ‘things to get round to one day!’ or just ‘stupid ideas!’.

Previous adventures hatched here have included both across Scotland open canoe trips and even the epic Great Divide Cycle ride was originally planned (well thought about!) here.

Anyway, the plan was to try and go away for a few days, do a journey, see a bit more of Scotland and get some exercise. Initially, Ian Robertson and I chatted over an Open Canoe trip (perhaps cross-Scotland three?). In the end we decided that a mountain bike expedition might be better but we would stick with the cross Scotland theme.

We thought we would travel light, carrying everything that we needed but we would stay in hostels so we wouldn’t have to carry camping gear. Looking at the maps and guidebook we thought we might like to attempt the fairly well documented route from Fort William (on the West of Scotand) to Montrose (on the East).

As always there were however a few logistical problems these included:

• How would we get to and from the start and finish?
• It was the middle of winter, with more snow than Scotland has seen in years and this was pretty much a summer route
• I didn’t have a mountain bike (I had given my away on the USA / Mexico boarder in the summer!)

After some more thought, another pint of Black Sheep and pickled egg each we had managed to get round / ignore most of the problems by:

• I ordered a bike on-line with my phone (there is nothing like impulse buying!)
• We decided that we would cycle from home to the local train station (5 miles) and get the train to the start and then the train back home again (it seemed like a great idea at the time!)
• We decided the weather was bound to get better and forecast was obviously wrong.

So a plan was hatched...

Day one - After work on Friday we cycled from Pencaitland to Longniddry Train Station. Ian arrived in plenty of time I was still answering emails when he left my house to cycle the 5 miles. As a result I arrived at Longniddry as the train arrived at Longniddry (almost the end of the trip). From Longniddry we got the train to Edinburgh. From Edinburgh to Glasgow and from Glasgow to Fort William.

The Fort William Train is meant to be beautiful – which is one of the reasons that we went when it was dark!

From Fort William it was then a very cold and dark 35 mile cycle along the Caledonian Cannel to Fort Augustus, on the shore of Loch Ness. Here we stayed for the night in a great hostel (Morag’s Lodge) – we arrived just in time for whiskey tasting.

Day two - On the Saturday morning we left Fort Augustus and followed General Wades old military road (built in 1731) up and over the Corrieyairick Pass.

We were able to cycle for most of the morning but there was a massive amount of snow on the top and we spend a couple of hours pushing our bikes up and over the pass until it was safe and possible to cycle again.

The scenery was spectacular and the detail was really brought out by the snow and light. It was also amazing to see so many frozen Lochs.

On the other side of the pass we cycled down to Lagan and spent the night in the Monadhliath Hotel. This again was another great place to stay – we were very well looked after and they even have a ruined chapel in their grounds.

We planned for a shorter day on day three and mainly took the road and national cycle network to Loch Inch where we stayed for the night and caught up on what was happening with the winter Olympics. Ian was coming down with the flu and my legs needed the rest!

We had to make a couple of difficult decisions on day four. Ian decided to get the train back home as he was not getting any better, the weather was due to get worse and the route over to Braemar (through Glen Feshie) was going to be tough in the snow.

We sorted out our gear and I decided to go and have a look at the Glen – thinking I could always get a later train home if things looked impossible.

The first part of the day went well and despite having to push a bit I made pretty good progress to the Glen Feshie Bothy. I have many happy memories of this place from my time a Dunbar Grammar School when we used to take the first year students camp outside the bothy and give many of them their first wilderness experience.

One of the other great features of the glen is this deserted chimney stack – you used to be able to have fires in the stack but now the estate warm people that this is unsafe (and they are probably right!).

From the bothy things got a lot harder and even though I was able to cylce a bit the landrover track was full of snow and I ended up pushing most of the day. The navigation was particularly hard at the watershed mainly due to the lack of visibility and the fact that it is very hard to pace or follow a compass bearing while pushing a bike!

I eventually arrived at Braemar at 18.30h – it had been a long, cold 11 hours day and I was thankful of the warm bunkhouse at the Braemar Lodge Hotel.

My original plan was to get to Montrose via Mt Keen. But I decided that probably would be at least another 6 – 7 hour push plus the cycling either side. So instead I decided I would take the road to Stonhaven. Stonhaven was 55 miles away and as it was on the coast as well it would still be a Cross-Scotland cycle trip.

So, on Day five I opened the bunkhouse door to be faced by a blizzard and I did actually think for a moment about going back to bed as got dressed in the bunkhouse drying room.

Considering the weather and the darkness for the first couple of hours I made pretty good progress down the road. It was very cold and large icicles formed on my cycle helmet! But as the sun came up and I dropped in altitude the weather did get gradually better. Apart from when a snow plough went passed covering me in a Tsunami of so much snow, I had to stop to try and get it out of jacket, rucksack and ears!

It was a nice ride to Stonehaven. I’m sure the road would have been a lot busier if the weather hadn’t been so bad – but I pretty much had the whole route to myself all of the day.

When I got to Stonehaven I cycled right down to the sea for a final photograph before heading to the train station to get a ticket. The attendent checked me on and it was luck that the train terminated in Edinburgh – because that’s where I woke up!

From Edinburgh I got the train to Longniddy and then it was five mile ride up the hill back to Pencaitand. I cycled via the Winton Arms deciding that it would be best to end this adventure in exactly the same place that it had started only a few days before!

I have embedded a Google Map of the route below:

View Cross Scotland by Mountain Bike (in winter?!?!) in a larger map

Cycling Home from Siberia by Rob Lilwall

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of adventure narrative.

This is partly because I love the idea of journeys in the outdoors myself but also because I still think that this type of literature has huge potential to engage learners.

Mark Salmon gave me a copy of Rob Lilwall's, ‘Cycling Home from Siberia’ for Christmas and I managed to read it in various train stations, airports and taxis over the festive season.

It’s a great read and a real adventure story. It was also great to read Rob’s side of the story after he left Al Humphries in Japan and most of the book is about how he then made his own way back to the UK.

If you have not heard of Rob before you should check out his website and I would defiantly recommend reading his book.