Iain spent the last weekend working for others as he does on occasion - on the shores of Coniston Water with a bunch of young people from the Lancashire town of Blackburn. We ghyll scrambled in Church Beck, did lots of ropes course stuff in the centre grounds and then finished the weekend off with a journey up the lake in a large 12 seater canoe - fab!On Monday, Iain met sisters Alex & Danielle who wanted to try climbing out on real rock and picked Kendal Mountaineering Services to deliver the goods. Iain chose Hutton Roof as the venue as it is a great place to introduce people to the sport of rock climbing with there being a lot of easy and not very high routes to choose from.
It soon became clear to Iain that the pair were competent at belaying each other and obviously worked well together as a pair. Here, Danielle smiles for the camera as she is lowered back down to the ground by Alex. In fact the pair smiled throughout the session and made up for the grey and threatening weather. Hutton roof sits about three miles east of the M6 at Junction 36 and is reached from the A65. The whole area is made up of large beds of carboniferous limestone and the outcrop which gets climbed on is just below the summit of the highest hill in the locality.
From where we were, Iain could see that it was raining heavily everywhere else, but apart from a short spell of drizzle, the rocks at Hutton Roof remained dry - allowing Alex & Danielle over three hours to climb to their hearts content.
In this final shot Alex tackles the hardest climb Iain was to offer the pair.
The session was very simple to run as Iain employed a "top rope, bottom belaying system" through out the session. This system involves setting up an anchor point up at the top of the route through which the rope hangs - both ends at the foot of the route. The climber ties on to one end and the belayer takes the other end in as the climber climbs. Once at the top of the route (ie when the climber can reach up and touch the karabiners that their rope hangs from) the belayer lowers the climber back to the ground. Top rope bottom belaying is a great system for getting people to work together, to communicate and to trust each other whilst learning new skills - and climbing!
Alex & Danielle climbed seven routes with Iain on this day and thoroughly enjoyed their introduction to rock climbing course with us here in the Lake District.
To find out more about our rock climbing courses go to www.kendalmountaineeringservices/pages/climbing.php where you can find out about our beginners, single pitch, multi-pitch and guided half & full day climbing sessions.
We look forward to working with you.
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