So I did my Mountain Leader training around 20 years ago with every intention of doing my Mountain Leader assessment a couple of years later, then I moved house, got married had kids etc. and then 20 years later I thought it would be a good time to finish this.
I made the decision on 2023 but decided to do a 2 day refresher first to check my navigation and steep ground work was Ok. Then this year (2025) I did the 5 day assessment in Eyri (Snowdonia). I was a great 5 days, one day one we focused on Micro Navigation, one day 2 we covered the steep ground work and then we had the 3 day expedition where we put it all together.
We spent the 3 days around the Cnicht area, with 2 wild camps. We had some sunny weather on the first day then it was heavy rain, strong winds and low cloud.
The expedition was great fun, although looking back this was probably type 2 fun with the weather being so bad. On the night navigation I remember being within 5 feet of a black shape hoping it was the lake I was looking for and not a cliff dropping into the thick fog and rain.
We finished with some river crossings which was ok, and as we were so wet from 3 days on the mountains it meant we were already soaked through so didn’t get any wetter in the river.
I don’t intend to be a full time mountain leader so you may ask why should I go through this process, the first answer is, I love the mountain and enjoy learning the skills. The mountains have also brought me so much enjoyment over the years, I would love to introduce other people into the mountains in a safe and informative way.
I look forward to learning more mountain skills, perhaps the Winter ML could be next…..