The main bulk of the work is the fun, practical element and the reason I work in the industry, leading groups on activities! Offering a range of residential adventure activities, split into 3-hour AM/PM sessions or sometimes full-day excursions, there is lots to keep me busy.

The most exciting has to be ghyll scrambling. A descent of a mountain stream typically involves jumping into pools of water, sliding down waterfalls and scrambling over rocks. It was an activity I’d only done a handful of times in college, so to be getting trained up in high water levels, and snow on the fells during a chilly March 2019 was certainly memorable! Since then, I’ve run over 500 scrambles over the 5 years, leading groups of up to 10 participants on my own, or even being part of an instructing team managing 40+ people making their descent as one big group.

Derwentwater is the local lake, just a 1.5-mile drive from the centre. It’s here that we run our kayak, canoe and paddleboard sessions. For groups of 2 to 32, sessions either 3 hours or a full day, being flexible and adaptive is essential. With a marina based on the north-western shoes, as soon as we are on the lake, the view south is incredible; craggy mountains. Tree-lined fell side and 4 massive islands draw you further out. I’ll never get bored of paddling on the lake, the changing of the seasons is something else.

You can’t beat a crisp wintry morning, snow on the fells, ice on the lake and frost on the boats. Then when spring is upon us and the vacant branches boom with life that is a sight. On the other hand, paddle boarding in August’s 30°C temperatures makes you feel like you’re hardly working. Finally, as October draws around, the fiery glow of the oaks and beech, ambers of larch and willow work their magic, transforming the vegetated landscape into a photographer’s dream. Autumn is my favourite. Blink and it’s gone, you’ve got about 3 weeks or prime colours before the show is over and the long winter awaits.

Rock climbing is a popular one and it is here that I am in my element. I love getting people out and trying new things, especially something I am so passionate about myself. With a whole host of crags to visit, I have the freedom to go wherever I believe the group will enjoy the most.

The sessions include teaching people to tie in, belay, basic rock techniques and movement skills to reach the top, getting them that sense of personal achievement. Sometimes I might run a quarry abseil, or we go bouldering, I’ve certainly had some of my best work days with groups and families at the crag. It has made me consider a future in guiding could be a great life down the line.

I run archery sessions, both traditional style on targets and, more uniquely, on our field archery course. This has 10 foam animals hidden around the site and involves ‘hunting’ them to score different points depending on where you hit. The highest score wins, a great laugh for families and stag/hen groups!

High ropes are a good one, tree top assault courses, zip wires, Tarzan swings, wire bridges, cargo nets and ladder climbs. It’s great fun and often an activity where I get to see the whole group flourish in different elements. Some prefer the climbs and some the swings.

Bike tours have become increasingly popular and I have now become a tour guide of the local valley! I love it, especially as I can get paid to ride my bike, a bonus! With either 1.5 or 3 hours to go biking, taking in the stunning scenery, tackling challenging hill limbs and cruising down the hi loo to the local ice cream shop, what’s not to love? The maximum ice cream consumption by me in a day has been 4!

Half or full-day walks usually take me up the hill where it all began, Cat Bells. It’s a great 6km loop from the centre with about 350m height gained. This can easily be extended to greater distances. Lots of the children that stay with us are city kids, from Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh, many haven’t had to opportunity to climb a hill before. Cat Bells leaves them speechless at the summit, breathless too! With 360° views of Derwentwater, the central fells Newlands Valley and horseshoe, Keswick and the northern fells, it’s easy to see why.

I particularly enjoy a full day walk, it gives me the freedom to plan an adventurous route and go off the beaten track, something which I enjoyed doing in the panning of my Wainwrights. I’d often incorporate something big as a highlight of the walk, boosting morale and keeping everyone intrigued to see what was around the next corner. A visit to caves or old mine workings, a dip in a river or stream, creating sculptures with nature and of course, that ice cream van never failed. The best day involved multiple modes of transport, no cheating, I promise! After walking over the mountain range, and crossing the flooded lakeshore path we ended up at a bus stop, an open top double decker ride took us to Keswick where we transferred on to the cruise across Derwentwater back to Cat Bells, Hawse End. It made it a very memorable day for the group of women who I had the pleasure of taking out!

That’s just the residential side, we also operate Keswick Climbing Wall, which entails all the usual things you would expect from the running of a wall, I regularly reset the boulders and top ropes, mostly catered from beginner to immediate, but of course, I stick a few hard ones in for the locals! As well as this, we offer climbing instruction where we teach beginners the hard skills to allow them to become competent unsupervised climbers, things such as knot tying, effective safe belaying, basic movement techniques, fitting of a harness and general safety around the wall. I like working at the wall as climbing is something I’m passionate about, it doesn’t feel like work at all, I’m just having a crack with some cool people and sharing my experience, helping them get into a potential lifetime hobby. Very rewarding. Great to see kids and families I’ve taught return every year to show how much they’ve improved. I’m very good at faces, names I’ll forget but imagine how many people I meet in a year!

Kids Club is my favourite though, pretty much left to my own devices with it, I’ve worked hard to give it some structure, make it fun and get them psyched to develop their skills. Every Saturday we have 2 hours of instructed/ coached climbing, with climbing-related games, working through NICAS, (something I did as a kid) and technique drills, all in all, lots is going on. It’s great to watch them improve, then when summer comes around, we take to the dry rock! Over the last few years, I’ve taken them to some awesome crags, first just for half days, then it developed into full days of climbing. I introduced bouldering sessions and have since run 2 half-day and 2 full-day bouldering sessions, all very successful with the gang. Great experience for them too, inspiring them to become better climbers knowing that there is a whole load of rock out there!