Mountain Leader Training, day 4

Expedition day 1.

Now we're off up into the mountains proper, and the forecast is grim. Excellent.

This group have a huge bonus that most do not... as a group of fantastic friends spanning two generations, they'll now have people who understand why they need to head out on days like this, why the obscure contour wrinkle and not the summit is the goal, why you need to go, whatever.

For the exped we were joined by another excellent instructor Alice, so having met up at the top of Wrynose pass we had a quick chat and then the bit the group were dreading.... I weighed their expedition kit. A lot of the learning for them is to find their own way. So whilst Chris is all about being as lightweight as possible (to make a point), I tend to add a layer of making it special (you need to enthuse) and Alice is just super efficient. We'd told them to aim for 10kg. That's everything on your back for two nights three days. They'd paid attention and bought water filters, some chose to not pack spare socks and they'd each brought themselves a treat or two. Just as we hoped they came  in between 10.4kg (I suspect very full jacket pockets lol) and 13.5kg which happens if your rucksack is older than me....
For the curious amongst you my personal kit came in at 9.2kg and I carry around an extra 1-1.5kg of group stuff.

After that I told Alice where we were camping for the night. She headed right, so I went left.

Pictures
Main: Living up to its name, Wet Side Edge, some great contour interpretation going on.
Extra one: our really rather excellent wild campsite who's location I'm keeping to myself. I've thought of stopping here often and it didn't disappoint.
Extra two: of course it doesn't stop just because it goes dark.

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