Category: Mr Alderson’s Group 2010

Friday, sea level traverse (Mr Alderson’s group)

Posted on | By LJoy774 | 1 Comment

Today was our last activity-filled day we where all extremely excited about finding out what we where supposed to be doing, when we where told in our daily morning meeting that we would be doing sea level traversing we were so unbelievable happy and no-one could wait!

It was about a 40 minute drive in the mini bus to the beach where we would be sea level traversing and the drive seemed to take forever so Elise and I (Lauren) decided to enlighten everyone with our amazing singing of ABBA songs!-I am not too sure everyone was too impressed to be honest! When we arrived we got into our waterproofs put our safety jackets on and strapped our harnesses on. We first followed Mr A to the side of the cliffs where we began to traverse along. It was so fun and everyone was enjoying themselves so far and even better know one had fallen in YET !! As we walked around the other side of the cliff we had to make a rather large leap also known to Lucy as the leap of faith! Toppo was the last person to make the jump and unfortunately timed his jumped just as a massive wave came crashing over the leaping rock. As the wave came crashing over Toppo was swept off his feet and thrown into the cold sea below, as he was pulled out by his dear friend Wellsey everyone else stood and did the only thing they knew how to do, LAUGH !! 🙂 🙂 🙂 !!

We then climbed through some tight gapes to get up to the cliff top and get back to the mini bus so we could eat lunch. After lunch we did some Tyrolean traversing it was great fun and it really showed who the brave people were, the braver ones out of us tried flips and fancy tricks like hanging upside down by our ankles it was so fun and extremely hilarious! Most people managed to do one flip but I managed to do 3 in a row 🙂 it was so exciting but it made us all very dizzy!!…

Afterwards we made our way back to the mini bus and then began our drive back to the centre for our last evening meal.

We had traditional fish and chips with mushy peas for pudding we had chocolate sponge and cream-I personally really enjoyed this (of course)!!

This evenings activities are still a surprise so we will have to wait another 15 minutes to find out what we will be doing.

Everyone had a great day and are now exhausted everyone is looking forward to going to bed!

See you tomorrow…xx

Thursday, gorge walking (Mr. A’s group)

Posted on | By EBurton642 | 1 Comment

We set off in the mini-bus in the morning with our wellies!!!(very exiting) 45 mins later we arrived at the ‘black river‘ and immediately it started raining :O once we got out the mini-bus we kitted ourselves out with helmets, harnesses and buoyancy aids and walked a little way up the gorge as it was really busy at the bottom. As soon as we started in the gorge we filled up our wellies with water on the first crossing and they never dried out again… Oopsie 🙂 we had to attach ourselves to the rope that Mr. A secured for us and drag ourselves through a freezing cold waterfall. Although it was really chilly it was the start to a great day. Afterwards we abseiled down part of the side of the gorge and into a supposedly shallow but actually waist deep gush of water. Once we were all successfully across we carried on up the gorge and found a fairly dry cluster of boulders to sit and eat lunch on. After an episode where Elise accidentally kicked  over Mr. A’s ‘special’ tea and the photo shoot with some funny faces we set off again. We had been walking for about 10 seconds and Mr. A asked us all if we wanted a challenge….. we were all a little scared. So Beaver (James Topping) decided to step up to the challenge and, once finished with his task, immediately regretted it as he was shivering uncontrollably. We then ventured further and were asked again if we wanted another challenge. Suddenly, everyone wanted to step up to it. After 3 or 4 goes each on the most amazing water slide EVER (but also the most painful (hips still hurt!), we had to unfortunately leave and clamber up to the waterfall at the top of the gorge. At the base of the waterfall there was a pool of water that was over waist deep at some points and we all jumped in! 😀 It was extremely cold but very funny indeed. Once we were done in the pool, we started to climb down the gorge. On our way down we stopped at the slide once more and had another go on it each. After walking down a little bit more Mr. A gave us one more challenge. We had to squeeze through a tiny little gap between some gigantic boulders and try and make it out the other side. Harder than it sounds! We then walked (and slid!) back down right to the bottom of the gorge and were finally allowed to change into some dry clothes (heaven!) After we were done changing we piled back into the mini-bus and had another 45 minute journey back to the centre whilst singing lots of songs and terrorising Beaver when he was trying to sleep…… poor Beaver. All in all we had a very good day at the gorge and, although we got many bumps and bruises, we had loads and loads of fun! 🙂

Wednesday, Snowdon (Mr. Alderson’s group)

Posted on | By Dominic | 1 Comment

Today was our highest mountain climb. We took a path called the Pyg on the way up which was named after the closest building to the bottom of the path, who’s initials were p.y.g. Mount Snowdon is 1085M tall, the highest mountain in England and Wales. Ten minutes into our ascent we were forced to stop to put on our water proof clothing because the rain started straight away, not scheduled until after lunch. We were faced by many waterfalls during our trip created by the rainfall. We had to step over the water falls, which were very slippery. Some people had a drink from the fast flowing waterfalls. When we were near the summit we found a finger stone ( a large post marking junction in the path) with lots of coins (mostly Pennines) stuck in it. When we past this it was about 20 minutes from the summit and we had a very windy journey up the last leg to the summit.

Mr Alderson's group at the summit of Snowdon
Mr Alderson's group at the summit of Snowdon

When we got to the summit we saw one of the Snowdon mountain railway trains. As you can see in the picture of the summit we were very wet and it was extremely windy. Dan Wells was on his knees at the summit because of the wind and height. 🙂 We walked down from the summit and walked past the Snowdon café, now closed for winter. We took the long Miners path back to our minibus. The path was quite well built and easy to walk on but very tiring. We got to the minibus shortly behind the other group who we saw coming down from the summit. We were soaking wet because of the rain and wind but we had a 10 minute minibus ride back before we could get dry. It was a great achievement being at the top of Snowdon and also being the highest person in England and Wales who was standing on the ground. On the way back we went through the Llanberis pass which was a spectacular veiw. When we got back we put all of our clothes in the drying room and went for dinner. After dinner a group of 9 went to the climbing wall, including Sam and me. When we got back we had a hot drink and went off to bed for the end of a very tiring day.

Tuesday, Tryfan (Mr Alderson’s group)

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Mr Alderson's group on the north ridge of Tryfan
Mr Alderson's group on the north ridge of Tryfan

On Tuesday we climbed the very difficult mountain called Tryfan the mountain is only 915M high but you need to scramble up the whole mountain straight from when we stepped out of the car park, we were climbing over huge rocks and boulders. The weather was not that bad when we started. We got about half way up the mountain and had a bit of lunch and then it started to rain very heavily so we had to put our water proof clothes on which was very hard because we were already wet and it was hard to get the trousers over our boots. The weather was terrible and it was raining really badly and there were really high winds. With the winds and rain it got very hard to climb the mountain. When we got very near the summit we had to stop for lunch on a very steep and slippery hill because we were protected from the wind there, but not the rain. Many of us got soggy sandwiches 🙁 When we got to the top of the steep hill we started to get blown away by the very high winds. We then had a short trip over some rocks and boulders to get to the summit ( Adam and Eve). Adam and Eve are the two large parallel rocks at the summit which look like people from a distance. We stopped for a minute at the summit and then started our decent down the sister path to the one we had lunch on, this was not so steep but still slippery. By this time the rain was chucking it down and we were drenched, Mr. A said it was the hardest rain he had ever walked in. When we got to a man made path at the bottom of the slippery rocks we started another decent. This was on grass which was very slippery and lots of people fell over, even Mr. Alderson. Melissa decided the fastest way down was by sliding on her face.  When we got to the bottom of the path, after many falls, we started to walk over the rocks to the minibus. When we got back we had to sit in our wet waterproofs which was a horrible feeling.  We got back to KMC and the seats were very wet! 🙂

Monday, Marchlyn (Mr Alderson’s group; the ‘A’ team)

Posted on | By LKear205 | 2 Comments

Hello Lucy and Lauren here!

Today we have been allocated our groups. We are in the ‘A’ team accompanied by: Melissa T, Dan Wells, James T, Dominic, Sam S, Ellie B, Elise and of course our team leader Mr Alderson!

Todays activities for our group consisted of us climbing up 3 mountains; Carnedd y Filiast, Mynydd Perfedd and the biggest Elidir Fawr (which we renamed Lydia!). It was a big shock to the system because it was really cold and killed our legs! Unfortunately, Dan was suffering from fear of heights, so we gently encouraged him up the mountain.

After reaching our first summit, we stopped for a snack and hot drink. We saw two ravens and named them John and Edward 🙂 Then Melissa went to the toilet behind a rock and had hugely amused everyone in the process of doing so.


Minutes later we moved on to our second mountain which was not much taller than the last. We managed to sucessfully climb it without leaving anyone behind!

We were freaked out when we saw the size of the third mountain (924m)! No-one wanted to move (especially poor Dan!) The mountain was extreamly steep and looked soooooooooo scary! It was a painful journey upwards but once we climbed over the HUGE, wobbling rocks we were relieved to reach the summit- apart from Mr A, Sam and Dom who carried on looking for the geocache.

They came back 10 minutes later with a manky white plastic container. It contained: a Ninga Turtle (LOL), rubber, pen and a notebook- which we signed our names in!

The way back down was a dangerous experience but it was very funny! Did you hear Lucy’s screams as she took Lauren out on the way down the slate covered slopes and slid down half the mountain.

It was a great day and we are looking forward to tommorow!

Peace out.