Friday 12 September 2014

Stag Events in The Lake District. Saturday & Sunday September 6th & 7th 2014.

Last weekend, we provided a day and a half of adventurous activities for Alan Robinsons Stag group. Alan & a bunch of mates travelled over from Teeside for the weekend to stay at Bowness on Windermere. Alans mate - Andrew McIntyre organised the weekends itinerary with us. The group wanted a half day of Ghyll Scrambling followed by a half day of Kayaking on Saturday and then a morning of Abseiling on the Sunday.

Photo one sees the group about half way up the great little Ghyll Scrambling venue of Stickle Ghyll in Langdale. Most people were now starting to perk up" after a heavy night before. If there is one thing that Ghyll Scrambling's good for - its curing hangovers!

Photo two sees one of Alan's Stag party as he climbs up the final waterfall at the top of Stickle Ghyll. To get to this point, the Stag Group had covered around 2km of ghyll - scrambling and wading upstream, swimming through and jumping into pools as well as climbing up waterfalls - two of which were roped climbs such as the one seen here!

We could have continued a little further upstream beyond this point, but we really needed to move on to the next session. Enjoy the Youtube video of this Ghyll Scrambling Session kindly provided by Alan (the Stag). It gives a really good impression of what great fun this activity really is!

After our Ghyll Scrambling Session, we gave the lads some time to get to get some lunch at the handy Sticklebarn Tavern before heading over to Coniston for the afternoon's Kayaking Session.

Alyn - Iain's assistant for the day, had already headed over to unload the kayaks from the trailer and get all of the equipment ready. So, when we got there - all the lads had to do was to get back into their wetsuits & cagoules, grab a buoyancy aid and spraydeck and then with a bit of instruction, fit themselves into their kayaks; and go! Just look at the weather - what a great day we were having so far.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of learning Kayaking skills - how to make the craft go forwards, backwards, turn stop etc, before Al organised a load of games. These included raft games and ball games (as in photo four) here, the group split into two teams and each team scored by hitting Al's kayak with the ball - though each team member could only hang on to the ball for a count of six (so not long!) Inbetween games, we journeyed along the lake a short distance.

This session finished off with a very wobbly relay race from the shore, around Iains Kayak & back to shore. The lads had to sit on (not in!) their kayaks for this race - hence the instability, most fell in of course!


Owing to the "nature" of the weekend, Andrew - the organiser, had asked for a late start on the sunday morning; and both Iain & Al were fine to push it back a further half hour so that we could all have a decent lie in.

Iain met the group at Skelwith Bridge with Al having gone on ahead to set up the Abseil site at Hodge Close, ready for the groups arrival.

Photo five sees two of the lads getting stuck in to the descent of the big slab abseil at Hodge. Many of the group had abseiled before - in the distant past! so it was quite a challenge to give it another go. Good effort!

The final photograph from this post about a Stag Weekend in The Lake District sees the whole group as we headed off to a different part of Hodge Close to do another abseil - this time a little higher but much steeper.

The lads thoroughly enjoyed their adventurous activity weekend with Iain & Al; and had a couple of great nights out in Bowness. It must be said that they all turned up in better shape for the abseiling than for the activities the previous morning. Perhaps they thought that they really ought to be sober today as abseiling was the most challenging & potentially dangerous activity?

All of this Stag group paid just £95 each or the equivalent of just over £30 each for three different challenging activity sessions and each session included the provision of all personal protective equipment required.

If you want to organise something really special for your mates Stag do then give us a call and we will make sure you have an occasion that you'll never forget - for all the right reasons!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Iain, what a fantastic weekend. All the lads thoroughly enjoyed the activities - in particular the ghyll scrambling.

Your relaxed but helpful guidance up the waterfalls and into the plunge pools was really appreciated by everyone. It really felt like you were one of the lads joining in the fun rather than someone barking out orders and telling us what to do. The enthusiasm for your job and your technical knowledge is clearly evident!
Once again, thankyou very much - I can't recommend you highly enough.

Alan - The Stag.