Roses Project Outdoor Learning Academy.

Hebridean Pursuits launched the Outdoor Learning Academy. Eleven keen young people met up in Strathyre to start their mountain training module. They have 10 days of hill walking, scrambling, navigation, intro rock climbing skills training coming up between now and May. The weather has been wild up in Scotland but we still managed to get out in the hills both days to put the theory into practice. Tuesday in the morning was class room based concentrating on equipment choice, packing and carrying, navigation skills such as setting the compass, taking bearings and planning routes. We also discussed risk assessment and managing risks. Today, we headed out onto the hillside, although the winds were gusting 80mph we found some shelter in the east facing glens. Here they used ground to map and map to ground features, also they used timing to judge position and started to consider pacing to establish position on the ground

. During the day we set up a variety of scenarios for the students to consider how and what they would do in a given situation, such as a member of the group with a broken ankle. A challenging two days with the conditions but lots of outdoor learning established. We look forward to four days on Mull at Tavool House in February where we will look at more mountain skills.