Friday 10 July 2015

A Week This Summer

The first full week of July 2015 has been a great week in the outdoors, broadly speaking its been very similar to each week since the beginning of March! There have been a rich & varied range of activities and we've had the pleasure of spending time with a truly diverse bunch of people from every walk of life.

The mainstay of our work always has been and always will be our "Community Programme" Saturday saw us enjoying an extended day underground in the Yorkshire Dales. It was physical, muddy but full of everything that makes Yorkshire's underground environment such a special place. We abseiled into a large surface pot hole; crawled through passages caked in a clay deposited during the last ice age and looked up in awe at enormous subterranean caverns.



Sunday was another day underground, this time on a freelance basis, with a group of young people from Northern Ireland so it was back to the Yorkshire Dales on a fine sunny day. The water levels were low as we caved ahead of a forecast change in the weather later in the day. None of the group had caved before, its always a real privilege to cave with folk who have never ventured into the underworld. The view over the karst landscape towards Pen-y-Ghent was as good as ever!



Monday could have been another day underground but on occasions at this busy time of year it really is necessary to get one or two "life" things done and a day spent in the office and around Carlisle was needed....


Tuesday, was a return to Lake District for some freelancing: archery and ghyll scrambling. Whilst a mild but very wet Wednesday began with a journey to the North East to work with a group of guys we see on a regular basis. The venue was the busiest Ellerton Water Park I've ever seen. The army, two schools and ourselves resulted in over a hundred water users on the day - there was still plenty of room and a very wet day both in & on the water was enjoyed!



It was back to the Lake District Thursday for a repeat of Tuesday's freelancing. Friday has been a day of preparation for tomorrows canoeing day with another group of young people from the North East, we are looking forward to it, ahead of more of the same next week!

No comments:

Post a Comment