Innovations

We always try to be innovative and inventive when it comes to our trips and courses. Just to list a few examples.

Winter Skills Course

At the start, we ran winter skills courses the same way as everyone else. Make it a bit of a fun experience, teach a few skills and have happy clients. However, we always felt that something was missing. After some brainstorming we realised that a lot of the skills most winter skills courses out there are teaching is just running through the motions and the textbook but don’t go that step further to make it realistic. Therefore we decided to introduce a more realistic view of our winter courses. We name to teach the basics of an ice axe arrest and then when everyone can do it we also have a look at doing those ice axe arrests while wearing a rucksack. Or how often do you go up the hills without something on your back? We also work on most other skills introducing a rucksack and use only crampons on the appropriate ground. Also, most providers out there would fit crampons on flat ground and then walk to the steeper ground to learn how to walk with crampons. In reality, you would not do that. We teach our clients how to fit crampons on steeper ground. So when you really need them you can do it in any situation.

Ben Nevis

For years we have been ascending Ben Nevis successfully. We have not one taken a group up the tourist path. If you want to do that you just need to follow a path and don’t need a guide for that. Not only that, after realising that an ascent of Ben Nevis is quite tight with time to get down in daylight we have decided to make it a bit more of a unique adventure and introduce a night stay on the summit on our winter Ben Nevis ascents. No one else seems to be doing this…. and if they do they probably copied us.

Sea Kayaking

We run many sea kayaking trips and to keep it interesting for ourselves and our repeat clients we go to other places at times. This means however that our programme for some of our kayaking trips is not very detailed. Sounds more like an adventure then though.