The Easter bunny had come early this year so what better way to burn off all those Easter egg calories with the weather forecast up and down like a yo-yo, of course it was that time of year for CCF Adventure Training. Our keen cadets from CCF, representing all three sections of Army, RAF and Navy, were about to throw themselves into a challenging environment as we headed out for our long journey to Eryri (Snowdonia).
Adventure training is designed to take cadets outside their comfort zone. Its aim is developing leadership skills, resilience, communication skills, decision making, courage, physical fitness, managing risk and most of all teamwork.
After the long trip cadets safely arrived at their accommodation for the week where they grouped together to share rooms. This was, perhaps, their first challenge – living in a small space with their peers. As our cadets started to make themselves comfortable in their new surroundings the staff sprang into action preparing the evening meal, with Lieutenant (Lt) O’Rooke, our lead chef for the week, putting his English teaching skills aside to display his hidden talent. Later that evening, Wing Commander (Wg Cdr) Smale briefed our cadets for the outline of the week and placed our cadets into teams, followed by evening activities and command tasks by Warrant Officer Class 2 (WO2) Jones.
Wednesday saw the first day of activities, and, with the weather looking great with blue skies and no wind, we changed the programme around to suit. One group of cadets took off to the nearby lake in Llanberis (Llyn Padarn) and took to the water in canoes while the other group drove up through a picturesque Pen-Y-Pass and jumped out to walk to their climbing spot for the morning at Dinas Mot. After munching on Lt O’Rooke’s designer lunch, the two groups swapped wet suits for helmet and harnesses and vice versa with the second group now having the advantage of the sun rising above the mountains for a sunnier climb. Later that evening and after dinner, WO2 Jones took the cadets through some fun activities concentrating on teamwork and communication to prepare them for the next few days, while the rest of the staff prepared packed lunches for the following day.
Thursday saw our two groups’ head in different directions, with one group staying more local for raft building and then an abseil off a disused quarry in Llanberis. They were also treated to a visit to the quarry museum hospital where our cadets learnt the hardship, types of injuries and medical breakthroughs within slate quarry life. The other group took an hour’s drive to Afon Ddu Gorge where they would take part in Gorge Scrambling. This is where our cadets don wetsuits, harnesses, helmets and life jackets and then scramble up the gorge by any means possible with Major (Maj) Trim hot on their tales. We were extremely lucky to have the Gorge all to ourselves which gave the cadets time to really test and take them out of their comfort zones in challenging environment. Our cold cadets returned to our accommodation where Lt O’Rooke was conjuring up another fine dinner and following that Wg Cdr Smale tested the minds and creativity of our tired cadets with his legendary Taskmaster quiz for the evening.
Friday saw us take on the big one as we tried to beat the weather forecast. We split into two groups but with a small distance between us to rise above the clouds to a height of 1085m on top of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon). To take a challenging route but at the same time take necessary precautions with the forecasted winds, we took the Pyg Trail route which is about 3.5 miles long with some steep climbs and has some stunning scenery which we were blessed to have considering the predicted weather. The predicted weather potentially did help stave off some other walkers which helped with the lack of queuing at the peak for some great photos and we just about got a 360-degree view. After plenty of photos and a spot of lunch we took the steep decline on the Llanberis path back to our accommodation. After another hearty meal to replace some energy lost on a long day’s walk we thought it was appropriate for a movie night and let our cadets chill as we created a ad hoc cinema in our briefing room.
Saturday saw us do the same activities as Thursday but with different groups. As promised early in the week on arrival, we told the cadets they may see all types of weather whilst our stay in North Wales and today was an example of that with some extreme wind in the night and a dump of snow on the mountain tops. Temperatures had dropped hugely since our sunny Wednesday which now seemed so long ago. This was now a bigger test for our hardened cadets as Wg Cdr Smale and Lt O’Rooke’s group took to the gorge, where our scramblers had to engage the colder waters running off the mountains and a wind chill up high for our brave abseilers with Captain Randle and WO2 Jones. The usual evening timetable of dinner and some activities in the evening before resting some tired bodies.
Sunday – our last day – was supposed to be a scramble mountain walk around in the Ogwen Valley but, with the weather not playing ball and some now tired cadets, we thought it best not to go up high and compete with the chilling winds, with a predicted wind chill of -12 up high in certain locations. Instead, one group took off to Moel Siabod peaking at a height of 872metres and the other group heading to Moel Hebog peaking at 782 metres. Both groups did themselves proud as the weather was unpredictable. After treating the cadets to fish and chips for dinner and ice cream there was time for one more activity to see which team won overall. Throughout the week all the staff had been keeping an eye and ear out to see who performed well throughout their time on adventure training. All the cadets did extremely well – and this was a tough choice with at least 5 being worthy winners – but congratulations to our worthy winner Gabriel M. Each of the cadets did extremely well in some variable temperatures. They threw themselves into the challenges and were extremely polite all week and represented Exeter School and our CCF at a high standard.
Huge thanks to the staff team Wg Cdr Smale, Maj Trim, Capt Randle, Lt O’Rooke and WO2 Jones.
