Cadets day out in the hills

Last week I was fortunate enough to secure some work with Kings School CCF, as part of an 'Adventurous Training' day in Snowdonia.  The day was split into two half day activities, hill walking and mountain biking. I was asked to run the hill walking sessions and to include some basic navigation skills within it.

I chose to use the north eastern approach Moel Siabod up to and around Llyn y Foel as the venue; partly because it fitted in well with the mountain biking venue (Marin trail) and because it offered a number of interesting options and easy exits to deal with varying abilities and the vagaries of the weather which last week was very unpredictable. The time I had available meant a summit attempt wasn't an option, but there is some interesting and challenging ground to be had around the Llyn.

A lovely start to a great day

The session started with some basic navigation skills concentrating on understanding and orienting the map both from the surroundings and compass, pacing using my trusty GPS to check out their accuracy, handrails and catching features, all easily facilitated on the approach to the lower lake.  It was interesting to note that even the more experienced had forgotten or mis-remembered some elements, so it was a very worthwhile exercise.  Interspersed with this was some impromptu aircraft identification for the RAF cadets as it seemed to be a busy flying day in the area .... I learned that American F-15s do fly in the area !

Yes I know its 'Aventurous training' - but you still can't go swimming !

The morning group were the more experienced and fresh, so after we had done the initial work they relished a slightly tougher round of location finding in more complex terrain.  We carried on up to the Llyn and then used the steeper ground south and east of Llyn y Foel to pose some tougher questions - which they answered pretty well - before completing a circuit back to the track and yomping down in the nick of time for the afternoon change-over.

Beginning some more complex nav work

The afternoon group were younger, smaller and less experienced and pretty tired from the bike ride, so enthusiasm wasn't high ! There were mutterings of 'do I have to do this ?' and 'I hate walking' - certainly an interesting challenge for a newbie leader !  Taking note, I decided to make sure all were properly fed and watered before we set off and slightly downgrade the afternoon walk, whilst still doing some of the nav work.  


To be fair, the youngsters soon got into it and by engaging them in conversation and throwing in some fun elements such as stone skimming they all seemed to enjoy it in the end.  Top fun activity seemed to be learning to use the group shelter (bothy bag) which went down a storm and we had quite a job getting them back out before a more leisurely return down the outward path.  By the end the comments had changed to 'we didn't think we would enjoy this, but we did', 'better than the mountain biking' and 'I don't normally enjoy walking with my parents but this was fun' not a bad result in three hours ! 

Huge orange caterpillar spotted on Siabod !

After a ride up a the narrowest road in Snowdonia in the mini bus (thank God I wasn't driving) to meet the bikers we hot footed it to Llanrwst for chips and then back to Kings School where I got a surprising number of 'thank-you's considering we had a bus full of tired people and parents waiting to whisk them back to civilisation !

Overall, a very rewarding and enjoyable day with an engaging group of young people - more please !