Canoeing across Scotland

As an après-exam 'break', I decided to sign up to a five day Canoe Across Scotland challenge with my friend Ed, in aid of the Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team (TWSMRT). A team of 14 of us crossed the country via the lochs, travelling a total of 95km, wild camping each night. I'd also just run the Edinburgh Half Marathon the day before we started (in 1hr 57!), which made things a bit more interesting!

The 95km route across the lochs from Fort William to Inverness

The TWSMRT consists of 50 highly trained volunteers, who all have full time jobs, covering distress calls from the entirety of County Durham. Not only do these volunteers rescue lost and/or injured people from the hills but they also search for missing people within urban settings. They've done a lot for the students of Durham, searching for missing people along the river. The team is funded purely by charitable donations, grants, trusts and sponsorship.

For the last two summers I've participated in the Three Peaks 24 Hour Challenge for this charity, but this year I wanted to try something new and challenge myself in a different way. I also wanted some time to completely relax and de-stress after my final university exams - it worked a treat!

Ed and I ran a pancake and waffle fundraising afternoon at his house, asking for donations in return for yummy food. We managed to raise a very respectable £101.10 on the day from our donation jug, so we were pretty pleased with ourselves!

The Great Glen Canoe Trail runs along the Caledonian Canal, which runs 97km from the west coast at Corpach near Fort William, across to the east coast at Inverness. Only 1/3 of its length is man-made - the rest is made up of Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. They (rather conveniently) run in a straight line along the Great Glen, a massive geological fault. (Having studied Geology for three years I found that part pretty cool!). We were to be portaging the canoes (half carrying, half wheeling the canoes along the ground - definitely not as fun as being on the water!) around the 29 locks, but the rest of the time would be spent paddling on the water, cooking on a fire or sleeping in our tents. Don't you just love it when life is that simple?



Day 1

We started in Corpach at 7pm on Monday 1st June. It was pouring with rain and freezing cold - the sort of weather that makes being inside by a log fire feel like heaven on Earth. Sadly though we were outside, about to start canoeing for five days, and for most of us it was our first time ever being in a canoe..

We followed the Caledonian Canal about 10km across to Gairlochy, through the pouring rain, slowly realising that 'waterproof' doesn't mean 'able to cope with Scottish rain' and getting more and more damp. However, it was actually still really enjoyable and great fun learning how to steer and use the paddles properly. We then reached our first portage - where you have to lift every boat out of the water, put them on wheels, then roll them around the long wiggly path by the lock. After breaking one set of wheels and moving every single canoe to our camping spot, we'd cracked the technique and it was plain sailing from then on!



Day 2

The next day involved crossing Loch Lochy (what an inventive name) and most of Loch Oich. The larger lochs are quite demoralising, as the other side looks really close but then doesn't seem to get any closer, even after hours of paddling. It was absolutely beautiful though, so it completely made up for the slow pace.

We set up camp at Leiterfearn, near the end of Loch Oich. We made friends with Marselle, a guy from Holland who'd just quit his job and was walking around Scotland by himself for seven weeks. He was camping nearby and wandered over to say hello after we'd set up our tents, bringing tidings of an axe and some dry firewood for us to use. He was walking the Great Glen route, so we saw him again the next day whilst portaging the canoes, in a very good mood considering the amount of Scotch Whiskey he'd drunk the night before!



Day 3

Day three was probably the hardest day, with three portages and tiredness beginning to set in. At the end of the last, 650m, portage through Fort Augustus (marking the halfway point of the challenge) we found a plaque that read 'Loch Ness, Fort Augustus' and took a cute team photo to document our achievement.

The team at Fort Augustus, about to set off across Loch Ness

We had winds up to gale force 6 on Loch Ness, which left us almost surfing on some of the waves - pretty helpful for pushing us along, but also quite tough to steer the boat on. We camped high up in a field on the northern shore of the loch, feeling happy in the glorious sunshine and stringing up our damp clothes to dry.

By now we'd all spent too long on top of the water and fancied getting into it, so we went for a dip! It was absolutely freezing and not pleasant at all.. but I'm happy to be able to say I've now been swimming with Nessie!



Day 4

We cooked dinner each night on an open fire, and had porridge every morning, but having to use damp firewood was making it quite tricky. We stopped for an early dinner at the end of Loch Ness, where we found a load of dry driftwood and made a brilliant final fire!

It was then a short, chilled, paddle along Loch Dochfour to our next camping stop at Dochgarroch. A few of us were feeling weird having tired arms but not tired legs, so we set off on a run (which then turned into a walk, when we realised how tired we were..) to make ourselves feel better and get a different view to what we'd been seeing at loch level.

Happy paddlers on Loch Ness

Day 5

The final stretch of the challenge was a fairly chilled paddle along the Caledonian Canal, with no portages and great weather. We played around tying the canoes together, which worked surprisingly well, and enjoyed the final couple of hours of relaxation. I haven't felt so calm, relaxed, happy and free for such a long time - I now love canoeing!

We finished at 11am on the 5th of June, feeling very pleased and proud of ourselves, and very ready for sleeping through the six hour journey back home to Durham.

Nearing the finish, experimenting with two boats lashed together

The challenge was also awesome fitness training for my upcoming expedition to India, so I'm feeling even more prepared now. I've also managed to raise a very respectable £205 so far for TWSMRT, with money still coming in! If you'd like to donate money to this amazing charity by sponsoring me for this challenge, please click here. Our pancake afternoon was a great success, but we'd like to raise even more if we can, and every single pound helps. Please help us to raise as much money as possible for this great charity!

P.S. check out my new map at the bottom of the page, showing where I've been in the world!

13 Weeks To Go!

I've just got back from a week of training up in Lichfield with the other TLs, the expedition Leaders, and the Young Explorers (YEs). It's been awesome meeting the YEs and seeing the Leaders again, and the excitement seems to be building up in everyone.

The TL team spent the first half of the week on an Expedition First Aid course, run by Lifesigns Group. The course has been developed by Royal Army Medical Corps Trauma Medics and outdoor instructors, so it's highly relevant to the Himalayan expedition and has prepared us well for any incidents that may occur. The skills we've learnt might mean the difference between life and death in the mountains - talk about pressure. Having said this, we'll have six medics with us in Ladakh who will take great care of us and be able to deal with whatever the mountains throw at us!

We learnt about what to do in case of suspected spinal injury, sucking chest wounds and catastrophic bleeding, among other things, and were tested in acted out scenarios. I spent one afternoon as a casualty lying on the floor outside with a fake arm wound and amputated hand, next to a fake snake whilst pretending to be unresponsive. I learnt a lot whilst seeing how the three different teams treated me and dealt with the situation.

We all passed the course, which will last us for three years before we'll need to retrain. Luckily the course also counts towards my Mountain Leader qualification, which I'm working towards at the moment.

Feeling cozy in the party tent!

Friday was spent on a team walk around Cannock Chase, a beautiful area around our campsite. We planned our routes on Thursday evening and set off the next morning, taking a well earned detour to get ice creams on the way back!

The YEs all arrived on Friday evening, so a few of us took on the mammoth task of cooking for 170 people - no mean feat! It was great getting to know them all over the course of the weekend, particularly my 'fire', Dras. A fire is a traditional term for a small group of around 10-12 people, originating from a group sat around a camp fire. All of the fires on the expedition have been named after the main rivers in the Zanskar region of the Himalayas, which is where we'll be going. So there's Dras, Nubra, Zanskar, Chenab, Indus, Markha and Shyok-Suru fires.

The Zanskar Himalaya expedition team!

The YEs all received training on the technical equipment we'll be using in India, the different options for shelter, health and hygeine, and other useful and interesting topics. I helped out with teaching about shelter, prompting conversations about shelter options in different scenarios and giving useful tips on putting up tents. We spent a lot of time sitting under the bright orange emergency survival shelters getting far too warm in the sunshine! During the expedition we'll have an extra communal tent for each fire, similar to a tipi, for us to sit in together and have dinner etc. when the weather's not great.

The TLs ran fitness sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning, running around a nearby hill fort and doing some yoga, as well as some 'wide games' on Saturday evening. We all had great fun playing Wizards, Dwarves and Giants (essentially a giant team game of rock paper scissors combined with tag) and Sardines in the dark, where we almost lost one of the sardines as they were so well hidden!

We also ran through the kit everyone will need to take, in a session that lasted over two hours, whilst wondering how on earth we're going to fit it all into our rucksacks! So much kit-envy, so many opinions, and so much down.

Some of the TL team at the end of the week - spot the odd one out with no down jacket..
From the left: Callum, Monty, Anna (me), Becca, Karl, Rob and Steph

There are now only 13 weeks to go until the expedition! The advance party flies from London to Leh on the 17th of July - it's getting closer..

More training, more new people, more excitement

I spent last weekend up in the Lake District with the other Trainee Leaders (TLs) and the Leaders, so the people in charge of the science projects, basecamp and the adventure side of things. It was awesome meeting more people and finding out about their experience with expeditions and mountainous environments - lots of inspirational role models.

We stayed at the YMCA National Centre on the western shore of Lake Windermere - a beautiful place for a morning run with everyone, next to the mirror flat lake and surrounded by the rugged Lake District hills.

One of my favourite parts of the weekend was learning about Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS), High Altitude Cerebral Oedema (HACE) and High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema (HAPE) (don’t ask me why the acronym ends with an E not an O..). It was slightly depressing learning how I might have a headache for the six weeks I’ll be in India, and terrifying learning how quickly HACE and HAPE can develop, but the medical team who will be part of the team seem really knowledgeable on the subject and will take great care of us all.

It’s important for all of us to know the symptoms and treatments of altitude related illnesses, as it could happen to anyone in the expedition team and we all need to know how to react. We learnt about the Lake Louise scale, which allows a score to be assigned to a person depending on their symptoms, and helps with the monitoring of people’s state. We can all expect some tiredness, headaches and poor sleep, but it’s important to know when people are deteriorating.

We’ll be acclimatising slowly on the way up into the mountains, taking time for rest days and factoring in going slower if anyone is struggling. We’ll be flying from Heathrow to Delhi to Leh, where we (the advanced party; the TLs and some of the Leaders) will then spend time sorting supplies of food, fuel etc. for basecamp and acclimatising - Leh is already pretty high, at 3,524m! ‘High altitude’ is classed as anything above 2,500m, and your breathing get shorter and deeper from only 1,500m, so we’ll definitely be able to feel it.

Our outdoor classroom - where we learnt about ice axes, crampons,
security on steep ground and roping up for glaciers

We also spoke a lot about hygiene and how we’re going to stop illness from happening and spreading. Some of the techniques we’ll be using at basecamp and during our short expeditions are very clever, such as the system we’ll be using for getting clean drinking water. Although the water we’ll be drinking is from glacial meltwater and will look crystal clear and clean, it’ll actually be full of tiny particles of rocks and even tinier bacteria. We’ll be using bags to filter the water through, before then using chlorine tablets, then adding a tiny sliver of vitamin C tablet to make it taste better.

Me, roped up, pretending I'm on a glacier and surrounded by ice
(lots of imagination required..)

We spent some time out on the hill, talking through crampons, ice axes, security on steep ground and how to rope up together when on a glacier. It was very useful revision of the material I covered on my Mountain Leader Training week last summer, and it was great to see how to teach each topic well. As a TL, I might need to teach or remind some of the Young Explorers on the expedition how to use the equipment and stay safe.

Loving life outdoors with Imi, one of the other TLs

One of the highlights of the weekend was drinking wine and playing an old board game - it involved climbing K2 via different routes and answering ridiculous mountaineering and climbing questions as a team. We found out a lot about each other, such as who would cut the rope when their friend was dangling off it, who would happily let their climbing partner pee out the tent door, and who cheats at board games..

I’ve now been set the task of planning a short session on the ‘leave no trace’ principle - it’s something I’m interested in and a big advocate for, so it should be a fun session with lots of discussion. That’ll be at the next training session - the TLs have an expedition first aid week soon, followed straight after by a weekend with the YEs. I can’t wait to meet everyone!

Meeting the TL Team

Last weekend the 20 Trainee Leaders for the British Exploring India and Amazon 2015 expeditions met for our first training session. Despite going on two different expeditions, the two TL groups will be doing all of our training together.

We met up at a scout camp in Lichfield on Friday evening, arriving in dribs and drabs because of major train delays and traffic - I was the first to arrive, so I made the most of the tea and coffee provided and chatted to James and Sam, the two guys taking our training.

We started off the weekend by talking lots about leadership, what it means, what makes a good leader, what our leadership style is at the moment and how we're going to develop over the course of the TL programme. It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences with leadership and their expectations for the programme. We all shared our favourite quotes -

"Leaders are not born or made - they're grown"

"Assumption is the mother of all f**k ups"

"Be the best you can be"

I'm sure lots more quotes will come out of the time we all spend together! (especially if we carry on playing Cards Against Humanity..)

We split into different 'syndicates', groups that we're going to stay in to complete our training (we're working towards a certificate in Basic Expedition Leadership, Expedition First Aid and Offsite Safety Management, as well as doing the expedition to the Himalayas), which was a great way to get to know people better (and learn names!).

We had a look at different tents and tried putting them up, then cooked our lunch on some different stove options. The dehydrated ration packs weren't actually that bad, but a 1,500kcal lunch definitely wasn't necessary!

We then learnt more about what's required to be an expedition leader - lots of risk assessments and planning, as well as the ability to be adaptable and motivational once you're out on the expedition. It's made me even more excited about developing my leadership style and putting it all into practice out in India and afterwards on other expeditions.

Our next training weekend is pretty soon - off to the Lake District in three weeks' time. A blog post will follow :)