As the temperatures began to rise and the snow began to melt, I was
busy packing my bags and heading north to the Cairngorms for my Winter Mountain
Leader Training course. Six days of snow
packed fun with lots of learning, time in the hills and meeting new people. So
much to look forward.
Staying at Ardenberg bunkhouse I quickly realised that I would be
the only female in the group of 7 participants.
Luckily Lou was helping Pete out as the second instructor so I had some
support! The group was fantastic fun and
soon the banter was flying around.
Despite the lack of snow, Pete always knew where to take us to find
enough to learn and practice the skills required for the course. Day 1 we spend a lot of time cutting snow
steps and flying down steep slopes practicing self arrest. (There is a great video of Matt The most
important element of the course is gaining the skills to make a group safe in
the hills and therefore being able to teach the basic skills in the mountains
is essential.
The evening sessions, run by either Lou or Pete were all about top
tips from the days - and there were plenty of them. We also had lectures on a variety of topics.
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| Photo taken by Matt LeVoi @ http://www.lakelandmountainguides.co.uk/ |
Day 2 we found another patch of snow to work on crampon skills and
made a wide variety of snow belays for emergency rope work. The WML is only qualified to deploy the rope
in emergency situations and we learnt a range of techniques for our tool
boxes. Testing the strength of the
belays is an important element of the process and having created a reinforced
buried axe belay, all seven of us put our weight on the rope. The belay held firm clearly showing its
strength.
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| Photo taken by Matt LeVoi @ http://www.lakelandmountainguides.co.uk/ |
Unfortunately my hands did not hold up to the test in such a
spectacular way and with my thumb entangled in the rope I felt a sharp
pain. However, not one to give into pain
I carried on with the rest of a thoroughly enjoyable day.
Day 3 we spent time talking about avalanche danger and then built an
emergency snow shelter each. Everyone's
was slightly different but the variety, size and efficiency was a great
discussion point. By early afternoon my right hand had swollen to twice the
size and I supervised while the boys dug Reusch block tests. Back in the car park Pete finally persuaded
me to get my hand check out at the clinic in Aviemore.
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| Photo taken by Matt LeVoi @ http://www.lakelandmountainguides.co.uk/ |
And that was the end of my course.
With a complete rupture of the ulnar collateral my thumb now has the
ability to bend right the way back - something I'm sure it is not supposed to
do. So a long drive back to Manchester,
with a slight delay as I broke down outside Glasgow, and straight to the local A&E
to get properly checked out.
I was so looking forward to building a snow shelter and sleeping in
it, doing some night navigation, more avalanche work and generally spending more
days in the winter hills with a fantastic group of people - but thank goodness
for the NHS (despite their delays).
I
finally had surgery 10 days after the accident and am now on the mend. Unfortunately the 12 week recommended recovery
period means that I won’t be out much this winter - even more reason to look
forward to Nepal in the spring.
WML training with http://www.petehillmic.com/
Thanks to Matt Le Voi at
http://www.lakelandmountainguides.co.uk/ for use of the photos.
