Disability Awareness for Mountain Leaders

Mike and Jane facilitated a course on behalf of the Mountain Leader Training Association to help Mountain Leaders understand what is involved in supporting people with a disability in the mountains. The course involved a classroom session helping delegates to understand disability, followed by 3 hours walking with 6 people from Glossop, with whom Mike and the Peak Park Rangers walk,

At the end of the day, everyone seemed to have learn't a lot, including us!

Mike and Janes High Atlas Adventure

Just returned from 10 days in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. The first time out of Europe for Mike (though not sure his trips to Albania quite count as Europe), and quite an adventure it was.

We wanted to undertake an exploratory visit to the High Atlas with a view to developing an itinerary for taking and leading our own clients in subsequent years. After hours of careful studying and pouring over the map we came up with a proposed itinerary. In the end it had to be changed because there was so much snow this year, but Morocco is such an interesting place it didn't matter too much.

We are in the process of writing up the detail, but I am sure those faithful followers of this blog (are there any?) will not be hearing the last of the Atlas Mountains.

In the meantime you can see our photos on flickr

Peak District Walking Festival

The 2009 Peak District Walking Festival was held between 25th April and 4th May. We offered to lead 4 walks, two for people with limited mobility walking the dales between Tideswell dale and Litton, and two starting from Foolow.

On the first Saturday, we were joined by 10 keen walkers, 2 of whom had done the same walk with us for the past 3 years. We led them through Tideswell Dale, Water-cum-Jolly and then on to Cressbrook Dale to the challenge of scaling Peter's Stone, before heading up Tansley Dale to Litton. All enjoyed the effort, and pronounced it a successful start to the festival.

On Tuesday evening, the weather was threatening to be a real challenge, however we all managed to stay dry for the pleasant walk through fields between Foolow and Eyam, then following the new Geological Trail path to Horeshoe Quarry and back along Tideswell Lane. Mike had been part of the original team campaigning for the British Mountaineering Council to take over the management of the quarry, so was in a unique position to share both it's history and hidden gems such as the newt pond and patches of summer bee orchid. We had been very proud to discover that the walk had been picked out as one of the highlights of the festival by East Midland Trains, in their customers magazine.

Saturday 2nd May saw us following the same route as the previous week, however on this ocassion we were treated to some beautiful flowers for which Cressbrook dale is justly famous. One participant sent us a very pleasing email after the walk "just to say 'Thank-you' for today's delightful walk. The walk, the area, the information, the company [including Flossie and Nipper] and the flowers were all wonderful. What a perfect introduction to the White Peak. I am astonished at the profusion of the flowers, especially the cowslips and orchids. Thank-you again.

The last day of the festival for us co-incided with Mike's birthday, and saw us on one of our favourite walks through Bretton Clough and onto Eyam Moor. Again the weather stayed dry, and we managed to get everyone to the Stone Circle without getting lost!

Once again a great event, which we are please to be able to support.