Saturday & Sunday 5th & 6th Sepember

After a day off, Iain was back out in the thick of it again with another group. This time working for another organisation with their clients who wanted a day of open canoeing and a day of climbing and ghyll scrambling.

We were working in the Ullswater valley with these clients and spent the Saturday on the lake. The picture here taken just after the start of the session gives an indication that once again, the weather was mixed, but the group were ready for anything!

The day on the lake consisted of the usual flat water skills input followed by some moving water skills on Goldril Beck - the main feeder stream from the Patterdale valley. Following this we paddled to one of Ullswater's islands for lunch and then went in search of some wind.

As you can see we found some and at 1 point had 4 canoe rafts sailing abreast at high speed - not quite the Red Devils, but impressive all the same. Whilst we all enjoyed this, the only snag was it was taking us further & further away from the van & trailer so, we had a fair paddle to get back.

Suddenly the day was over, but the group had loved it.


Sunday found us meeting the group at Helvellyn Youth Hostel where they were staying and walking around to Moorside Crag to do some climbing and abseiling. Two climbs were set up and Iain rigged an abseil so everyone was able to get on doing something.

Before we knew it, it was after 1pm and we still had lunch and then the ghyll scramble to do! This picture was taken just before we left the crag and shows the impressive remains of Greenside Mine in the background.

Greenside was one of the country's major producers of lead ore and worked continuously between 1690 and 1962! The history associated with the place is awesome and well worth reading about. As it happens, Iain spent the first five years of his life living at Helvellyn youth hostel (then known as Greenside youth hostel) - truly a local lad having also spent 21 years as a member of the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team until 2007.


Finally, after a rapid lunch we dashed into Glenridding Beck for a short but exciting ghyll session. Again, the group loved it and this picture shows one of the team going for it on one of the many small waterfalls we had to climb along the way.

Then it was time to pack up and go home.

The group thoroughly enjoyed their weekend with us and will be back again for more in the future.