As mist rolls over the Kerry hills and sheets of wind and rain batter the mountain tops it seems like a good time to mention that we're beginning to focus again on our Mountain Skills Training.
Mountain Skills is designed to give you the skills, ability and confidence to look after yourself in the Irish mountains, get off the beaten track and explore the mountain wilderness. You'll be trained in Equipment, Map Reading, Navigation Techniques, Compass Work, Mountain Hazards, Moving on Steep Ground and Emergency Procedures.
Just as a nice thing to do (because we're quite nice people) we're giving away one place on both a Mountain Skills 1 and Mountain Skills 2, in Kerry over the coming months.
To enter this competition leave a comment here with a story of the worst, most stupid or embarrassing time you've gotten lost and why you could use this Mountain Skills Training! Add your email address also, so we can contact you.
Here's the catches. The winner will need to pay a €5 Mountaineering Ireland registration fee. The winner will need to write a blog about their experiences as they progress through their training and we'd love if you'd also put a link for our Mountain Skills Training on your facebook page. That's all!
Good Luck - Nathan
8 September 2010
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Hi Nathan, Is there any specific dates that has to be used? and how long is the skills 2 course. I did a skills 1 with you and i think its time to upgrade. James
ReplyDeleteHi James, Within the next two courses really; so MS2 will be 11th & 12th Dec (2 days) of sometime in Jan/Feb.
ReplyDeleteWell I once got so lost on the outskirts of Lima, Peru that I ended up in a shanty town. Thankfully there was a fiesta going on and as the only European there I was the belle of the ball, could've used some serious help getting home & I'd say the Mountain Skills 1 would be the level that'd get me started!
ReplyDeletescrewvy@campus.ie
I got lost in kerry west of murirrigan, which was beautiful but realised i was walking beside a cliff and had a conniption. It was a drop of over a hundred feet!
ReplyDeleteMountain Skills2 would be my level, did level 1 a while ago. argyle90@gmail.com
On a beautiful April morning i woke up feeling particularly brave and decided i'd do the Coumshingaun loop walk by myself in shorts and a t-shirt. Half way up it started to rain, as it does in Ireland in April, but i strode on nonetheless being the stereotypical 25yr old male. Soaked clothes and a howling gale on the summit were worrying enough, however when i lost the path (along with my bearings 20 minutes previously) i started to panic. After an hour of being too scared to stop moving for fear of getting too cold, and too scared to move too much for fear of getting more lost a lovely group of elderly ladies came along. Within minutes i was being guided back down after borrowing several items of clothing. Unfortunately none of the clothes were very large and i made it to the bottom wearing tiny orange gloves, a purple gillet and a very red face!!!
ReplyDeletepauliew16@hotmail.com
Hi Nathan, a few years ago in the mournes i took a bearing south west off eagle mountain in thick murky mist. My objective was to arrive back at spelga dam later that day, something very strange happened however and i unexpectedly arrived outside a sheep farmers house. Upon rousing the farmers wife, i asked "is spelga dam close by any chance?" "No love, your in Rostrevor, Spelga is 9 miles back along the road" she replied. A dirty horrid, awful goddamn soul destroying road walk sure enough brought me back to my intended destination close to midnight. Damn i need some training! stujbro@gmail.com.
ReplyDeleteI don't think i've ever got lost....sugar a comp I can't enter! Unless doing things backways counts....I did MS2 first....and would still really like to do MS1....Always seem to start off at the deep end and end up a jack of no trades! Can being from the northwest and ending up in MullinGar count as lost? lflanagan@eeu.antaisce.org and i always bring good weather........... :)
ReplyDeleteMy hubby and I managed to get lost on the way down a mountain in scotland, a 'helpful' local told us a shortcut and we ended up in thick forest with me carrying our 18month old son and my husband reasuring our 3 and 4 yr olds !! the mobile phone died mid phone call and it was getting dark just to add to the stress !!thankfully we emerged after several hours and the rest of the holiday was lovely,I am now very wary of going off the beaten track !!
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to win but none my lost stories compare with wearing old womens clothes , nearly falling off a cliff or wandering through forests in Scotland. Best of luck you guys, you need it (just kidding) I will have to do the course the old fashioned way, if I can make time. Brian.
ReplyDeleteI'm told by my Aunt that I disappeared during a Ghost train ride when I was very young and was discovered wandering around the dark near some coffins....some night navigation skills might have come in useful then! Strangely enough, I haven't been scared of ghost trains since....Dor :-)
ReplyDeleteBy completely misreading my map [misreading is an understatement – I don’t think I ever had a clue how to read it at all] I ended up completely off course in the peak district in the UK. I lost one of my trainers after being forced to cross a mud pool. Had to complete the remaining of the 3 mountain / 24 mile hike in socks to only to discover that a rainstorm had arrived and I had to “sleep” in a NON waterproof tent [who makes tents that aren’t waterproof….or more importantly why did I buy a tent that wasnt waterproof]. 5.30am that morning I called it quits, soaken and numb with cold and headed home to discover I unknowingly lost my house keys in one of yesterdays downhill mountain falls. End result was getting dropped off at a hotel at 7am in the morning, covered in mud, shoeless and for some random reason carrying a soaken duvet.
ReplyDeleteailsaberkeley@gmail.com
I once got lost in the Comeraghs, aimed for Coumshingaun and missed! Ended up in Fauscoum being highly disappointed at the size of the crags.....
ReplyDeleteI have a memory of getting lost on a trip with my brother and parents when I was about 15, for some reason some bright spark(most likely my Dad) decided that it would be a good idea to climb a mountain, through a forest when not, one of us knew where we actually where. We of course thought we were going in a straight line and could easily retrace our steps(as you do) when the reality was far, far from that. We had of course gone around trees, climbed over logs, jumped over muddy puddles etc and when we turned around and tried to retrace our steps all we could see was trees, everywhere.
ReplyDeleteWe did walk back in the direction we thought we'd come from, but we soon realized we were just going deeper and deeper in and further and further up. The only thing we could really do was go in one direction and try and get out, at this time mobiles didn't have great signals and we had no GPS on our phone like the trusty iPhone so it wouldn't have been much use anyway seen as we had absolutely no clue where we were. Anyway, we did continue in the direction we thought we'd come in as that seemed the most sensible option, eventually I looked to the right and thought I could see our car through the distance and the trees. Don't know what led my gaze that way or what convinced me that it was indeed our car, but, whatever it was it was good as I turned out to be right. must of taken us about 2 hours to cover about a 2 miles. ..
mpeavoy@gmail.com
Congratulations to Ailsa Berkeley, who's story of getting lost has won her a place on Mountain Skills 1 & Mountain Skills 2.
ReplyDeleteEveryone else who entered has won first choice on a Mountain Safety Promotion we'll be running in Kerry & Wicklow over the coming months...
Here's a link for our upcoming Mountain Skills Courses: http://tinyurl.com/po4krc
Thanks! Nathan