UK MOuntain Training programme
Specifically designed to accustom you to mountaineering, push your limits and ultimately build confidence over 3 focused trips
Selection Time with the ‘Fan Dance’, Brecon Beacons
The first of our UK mountain trips begin with an intro to the Mountains in the Brecon Beacons, South Wales. We’ll take on the legendary ‘Fan Dance’ and you’ll start to understand how you shape up in the mountains.
This is a great introduction to the mountains, taking in some famous Peaks including Pen Y Fan (886m) (used by the British SAS during their selection process) and covering 18.5kms of long undulating inclines and descents. The route is easy to navigate with a relatively clear path from the Story Arms car park over Corn du (873m), Pen y Fan (886m), Cribyn (795m) and Fan y Big (719m)and then around the old Neudd Reservoir towards Twyn Mwyalchod (642m) and back to the car park via Craig Gwaun Taf.
This will start to acclimate your team to a decent mountain day, no scrambling and little exposure, whilst taking in some great views and offering a real sense of achievement.
“The Welsh climbing trips give a good intro to mountains on a manageable scale.”
Tom Coates
North Wales Classic Scrambles
As your fitness training progresses, we’ll head for Snowdonia in North Wales for an over night, experiencing a full day on some classic scrambles and iconic mountains in this part of the world. Here we’ll play on Crib Goch and summit Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) on the Horse Shoe and depending on conditions we may on the next day continue our adventure scrambling up the North Ridge of Tryfan and the Glyders. These days are designed to open you up to high exposure scrambling and a full mountain day, whilst taking in the awesome views on Snowdonia and most likely experiencing some of the changeable mountain weather we’re lucky to have in the UK.
Although a shorter days than the first, there is a lot of new skills to take on board here and will start to accustom the Team to higher mountain conditions and some basic Grade 1 Scrambling. This is 2 months in to the training usually so a certain level of fitness and conditioning has been achieved to help them through this transition.
The Welsh 3000s
The culmination of your physical and mental training in the mountains and the perfect test before heading into the Alps. This challenging last phase of the training covers over 45 kms (28 miles) taking in 16 peaks over 914m (3000 ft), which we complete in under 24 hours. We start this in the evening, with a night moving through the mountains and finishing the following day late afternoon.
It will push you and your team to the limits and will test:
- Physical stamina
- Mental fortitude
- Scrambling
- Mountaineering in the dark
- Sleep deprivation
We start this late evening hitting sunrise on Crib Goch finishing Stage 1 in the morning and marching through the day on Stage 2 and completing Stage 3 into the evening. The physical and mental hardship you will need to push through is a similar battle when pushing through the altitude you’ll encounter on Mont Blanc.
When you complete the 3000s, you know you have what it takes to take on big mountains. Most of our clients have been surprised at the reserves they have to hand to complete this.
