Not lost

It's been a lot of long roads back to today. 
Today is day one of a five day Mountain Leader Assessment. 

It's nearly a decade since I was in these folks shoes, this week I'm the Assessor. All that training, consolidation, hope, worry- are they there? They'll know come Friday, though we may know sooner.

It's been three years since I last worked on a Mountain Leader course. In the year before the operation on my ankle I knew I couldn't. After the operation I feared and I hoped, but if I'm honest I really didn't know. 

It's been a couple of months since I said "yes" when C asked me if I'd work this week, and since then it's sat there in the diary taunting me, questioning, making me second guess that yes. 
I've upped my game, hit the hills more and more. It's hurt, it's worried me, but I've come through bit by bit. I can't and won't be less than the candidates deserve, equally I'm old enough to know how to work clever rather than hard. And sometimes, just sometimes, you have to jump.

Today was a big mountain day, settling them in, letting them show me what they've got, focusing down slowly to the level we want and need them to be. Every interaction should be a learning opportunity, so I've let them show me, I've asked them for options, I've coached some alternatives. 

Together we had an excellent day, out across Banishead Common, up to beautiful Blind Cove, fighting the elements across the Pikes to mighty Dow and then  across to Savin Hill. We ticked the Old Man simply because one of the group had not, then we spent a while talking history and rare Alpines in the old old workings of old old Lakeland. At The Bell we took a look at where they need to be in terms of steep ground. We laughed and we were nervous, but we (mostly) got more right than wrong. 

Now we all get to see what the next four days will bring.