Yesterday, Iain from Kendal Mountaineering Services organised a half day rock climbing & abseiling session in The Lake District for staff from Nucleargraduates in Workington, The intention was that this was to be a teambuilding exercise where the the Nucleargraduates programme management team could have fun whilst working together with customers and the newly appointed programme Manager who took up her position recently.
In order to facilitate this, we ran a top rope/bottom belay session at Woden's Face in Borrowdale. Woden's Face is a popular beginners rock climbing venue near to the Bowder Stone.
In photo One, Allan is lowered after attempting a climb whilst belayed by Roy; and Christine - the new Programme Manager for Nucleargraduates.
Conditions changed during the day from being mild & calm at the outset of the session to being rather damp cold & windy by the end.
Photo two was taken just as we stopped climbing and headed down to the nearby National Trust Abseil site. Iain & his assistant had rigged four top rope bottom belay climbs for the group and despite the weather, they all worked well together and had a great time.
With top rope/bottom belaying technique, the person climbing is kept safe on a tight rope by a belayer and tailer at the bottom of the route.
This encourages confidence to climb - particularly for people who have not tried the sport before. Once at the top of the climb the person has to be lowered back down by the belayer calling for trust on the climbers part and care on the part of the belayer & tailer. This type of introductory climbing session is ideal for encouraging support, trust and improving communication skills within a team.
Finally, photo three shows Dave, an employee of Rolls Royce and a customer of Nucleargraduates as he abseils from the National Trust abseil station.
Abseiling is a real challenge as one has to lower ones self backwards over a cliff and walk backwards down whilst controlling the rate of descent which Dave can be seen doing here with his right hand.
Dave certainly found abseiling a challenge, but he was safe at all times due to the fact that Iain had him belayed on a safety (the red) rope whilst he lowered himself down. It is essential to have a back up when abseiling - either a prussik attached to your harness & the dead rope side of the abseil device or, as in this case - a friendly instructor to pay out the rope and offer support & encouragement as you descend.
Abseiling is an ideal activity for a stag or hen event - just the business if you are looking for a real adrenalin rush.
It was good to see the team from Nucleargraduates again. Last year they used our services for ghyll scrambling on a number of their induction workshops and then in October we organised a fantastic corporate team building event for them involving a number of different team tasks and a large group of apprentices. Read all about it here!
To find out more details about our corporate team building packages or our ghyll scrambling, canyoning, introductory climbing and abseiling sessions. Contact us at Kendal Mountaineering Services to see what we can arrange for you.
We look forward to working with you.
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