Having done some sport climbing, my goal was to get seriously into trad climbing. It's at this point, sometime in april this year, I saw the advert for the subsidised 'get outdoors' courses run by the BMC and of course I signed me and my girlfriend up straight away. Their venue of choice was of course the national mountain school at Plas-Y-Brenin. Well what can I say about Plas-Y-Brenin. The service was excellent and the team instructing on the course included the legendary James Mchaffie. Our instructor, Cath Bromfield, took us through the basics of building top rope and bottom rope systems, showing us from scratch how to place gear and covering everything you needed to know to confidently get out on real rock (We all left with a shopping list of gear).
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| Rigging Top ropes above Betws-y-Coe |
The course is defiantly a great way to meet other climbers with the same goal as you, especially in the bunkhouse accommodation, where we all socialised in the common room until the early hours of the morning. At only £80 for the weekend the course was pretty good value as well, partly funded by the BMC. Interestingly the BMC have extended the scheme and you can now go on a course run by many local climbing centres, ideal for anyone that lives a long way from north wales.
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| Climbing a very slippy slab! |
