Wednesday 6 February 2013

Winter ML Assessment Day 5: The End!


The Final Day.

The wind built up all night and all of us had to dig ourselves out several times.

We were aiming to get away by 9 am to return to Glen Feshie by 12 noon so it was an early start in order to melt snow. By now there was no way I wanted to leave the snowhole for any reason until it was time to set off.

 The wind and weather had other ideas about our ETA. By the time we were walking along the Sgorr Gaoith ridge it was apparant that the wind was now gusting 70 + mph. Walking was extremely difficult and in the end we had to form a parallel line and link arms to stay on our feet and not get blown away. (This was becoming quite reminiscent of my WML Training on Creag Megaidh!). The snow had also arrived with large flakes mixed in with the spindrift.

We dropped to low ground as quickly as was possible also having to avoid windslab and rocky slopes. We finally made it back to the car at 3 pm. On our walk down, Steve debriefed each of us in turn. We were all delighted to find that all of us had passed the Assessment.



 

What an epic week. A big thanks to Sam Learey and Steve Spalding, our Assessors who not only assessed us but also used the time to add to our experience with coaching and tips, and to the other candidates, Neil, Danny and Emma. They were a great bunch, really supportive of each other and unlike some assessments I have seen we worked as a team with no one trying to play 'one upmanship' or putting others down. Thanks guys for an amazing week. Not sure I would want to repeat it, but I sure am glad I have had the experience and that after all these years I did go for the assessment.

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