One in three Local Authority outdoor education centres are facing closure (some have already closed) which could mean large numbers of young people are denied potentially life-changing experiences, at a time when health, physical activity and contact with nature are all declining. Some children from poorer and disadvantaged groups may not have another opportunity to share a night away from home and visit places they would not otherwise see.

The sad fact is that closure need not happen, in many cases given extra time these centres could become self sufficient. If centres close they may not reopen again.

You can help by signing our petition, set up by the FSC with the support of Association for Heads of Outdoor Education Centres, English Outdoor Council, Institute for Outdoor Learning and National Association of Field Studies Officers. If we reach 100,000 signatures this year the issue will be considered for debate in the House of Commons.

To sign the petition visit http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/26661

To raise awareness of the campaign we have created a short piece of video which you can watch below:

I set down in the School room, and managed to get 11 problems done. A few might seem a little tough for the grade, but a quick session with a few climbers after I set them and they seemed to think they were good value for the money. I did manged to flash all the problems, when I tried them, which made me take a hold or two off and spin some around. I was a little disapointed that I did the routes so quickly, but in order to set the harder problems I do find myself trying a sequence after I have set it, and think where might the next hold go, and how small it should be and what direction it should face. So they were more like redpoints for me.

I hope they are enjoyed by a few climbers.

Made a real difference to the psyche by going there and not the beacon, as we go to the Beacon so much we kind have done all the problems we can, so it was like going to a new crag, with lots to go at. We weren’t the only ones to hide indoors. With Caff, Floppy and Ollie all heading there.

I have been really intrigued by some of the information in there, as to a certain extent it has counteract certain claims (mainly by wikipeadia taken from modern sources) I have read about the history of design. This combined with another great google feature, where you can search for Patents has done something to skew the ‘convientational wisdom’ of who invented what an when.

Most people would attribute the crampon to Oscar Eckenstein and the carabiner to Otto Herzog. However there are references pre-dating the 1908 Eckenstein claim of invention of the 10 point crampon. Where as claims that Herzog’s made the first carabiner in 1910, are pre-dated by patents for ‘identical’ albeit not climbing specific snap-gate loops.

It part of a little project I am trying to write on the History of the Science of Mountaineering, where I am combining the contextual setting of the time in terms of culture and understanding of the world, put against the development of Mountaineering: Its equipment and practices.

I ended up using the fault tool that was appearing on my Internet explorer. I phoned the number and it was a automated message saying there were no faults in my area and I should go to a web address to report the fault.

How pray tell then does a person whose interweb is down get on the web to report a fault. Lots of hunting latter and a 45 minute call and I am eventually told it will take five days to fix.

Gutted!

What PRE does is allow you to monitor your performance in a new way, as whilst in the short term your grade might not increase, the chances are that your PRE for a grade will descrease before your grade goes up. As such having finer performance measure, might help you stay motivated.

It also is a good way to make sure your warm up is a warm up, as if you PRE goes above 2 for warm up routes, then you are probably having to try too hard for the route to actually be easy enough for you to warm up. Anyway I hope you like the new feature, in a months time I will put together a page that allows you to explore your results in a variety of ways.

One centre recently made all its ‘teachers’ redundent, and offered them the oppotunity to reapply for there posts under different terms and conditions. At least another two centres I know of are seeing a record fall in student numbers, and could well close down by the end of the year. These are Local Education Authority centres that once close will be very unlikely to reopen as the government and local authorities strive to cut there budgets. Meaning that this sector of the market will no longer be provided by instructors with Education qualifications and a strong centre ethos of the educational benefits of learning in the outdoors, but by smaller ‘activity centres’, whose ethos is on fun and adventure rather than ‘education’, and sadly those skills of using the outdoor classroom to develop children will be watered down, and perhaps eventually lost.

Whilst another large centre cancelled two weeks of courses due to such low uptake that those courses were no longer financially viable. This same centre also appears to not be renewing annual contracts to staff, instead trying to offer them work as, when and if it appears.

Yet another centre was pretty much unoccupied by students for about two months before christmas, and most others are getting by on skeleton staff, employing only a small number of freelance staff, and only if they can’t rearrange there permanent staffs rotas to fit this.

What this means for North Wales who knows, but around ten years ago the Outdoor and Adventure Tourism Industry accounted for £140 million pounds of the local economy. After local councils it was the biggest part of the Economy.

What it seems to be meaning for me is that there simply isn’t any work. I have done about four days work since October, and at present I have two days booked in March. So its pretty bleak, and I am certainly not the only person whose work is drying up, if only the weather stayed like it was for the last few days, at least we could get out playing on the rock.

My prediction is there’ll be less outdoor centres in North Wales by the end of the year than there are right now. Those that do survive will be laying off staff and getting by on a skeleton crew.

…and then theres the outdoor shops…

Callum above the crux of Cytitus By Proxy after climbing the Stiff Syd's Cap E6 6b

The weather today was a little bleak in the morning, and given how cold it got last night, I choose not to climb today. Instead I headed put with Caff and Calum Muskett, to the Rainbow Slab, where Callum shot up Stiff Sid’s Cap. A run out and unsurprisingly technical and thin route up the left side of the iconic Rainbow Slab.

After that we headed up to Heatseeker, where I did tie on, but taking photos makes my fingers get too cold, as I can’t operate the camera in gloves. As such I barely got off the ground on this F7c. Caff however got it pretty quickly though.

Callum reaches the break with relief, on the bold start to Stiff Syd's Cap E6 Rainbow Slab

Caff loving 'The Moves' on Heatseeker! A great F7c arete on Rainbow Walls

However, if you then put into the equation four climbers with different agendas, then you can spend half the day arguing the toss and get little actual climbing done. Not that we were arguing but before we left we had to watch Ollie on Mr Fantastic (waddage!) and Katz of Elementary Wall. Not to mention some other Facebook actions.

Like Newton who came up with the inverse square law of gravitational forces, I to have done some research crunched some number s and above all created a mathematical rule of thumb. Its call the Reeves’ Square Law of Pontification. You take a meeting time and place for climbers, say ten o’clock at Dave’s, then to get the time you actually leave Dave’s you do the following.

Time for Pontification = N2+∑EFV+CN

Where N is equal to the number of climbers and E, F, V represent the grade of the last route climbed by each of the climbers present in either E grade, F Grade or V grade, and C refers to number of coffees to the power of N.

Simples, so it took us an age to leave the house, and Dave had tagged me for climbing, whilst we had set the big guns up together. Ollie despite climbing V Hard, wanted an ‘easy day seconding’, So we teamed him up with Caff, and tried not to laugh too loudly when Caff declared he was getting on Raging Bull, a tricky E5 6c.

Basically it is an upside down coffin, with less pegs than the guidebook suggests, and various big names have seen epics on the route.

Dave and I went for Hardd, E2 neither of us had climbed, and what’s more it was *** and in Hard Rock (Well we think it is, can’t be bothered to Google the list). Dave did pitch one the main event, and did well. I seconded and just looked at the awesome swing potential as I stripped the gear before the crux. Thankfully my feet stayed on.

I then lead the last 4c pitch, and I swear given a 4c grade I was thinking of a nice VS pitch. Whilst it was never desperate, if a VS leader got on it they’d be pumped before they left the belay. It goes through some truly outrageous terrain, on good holds, but generally you feet are below you. I got back and looked in the old guide and they gave it 4b. I mean what were they thinking?!

All the while whilst this was happening Caff was engaged in more the sort of behavior you’d expect from those crazy wide boys Randall and Whittaker. At one point there was almost a defeat as the words Samurai Groove came up the cliff, but after some climbing up and down Caff put his foot to the floor, and I am gutted I missed the action, but cutting loose onto an armbar, and other wild moves.

As Caff and Ollie returned to the bags, I had to say well done to the youth. To which Caff said thanks, to which I replied, “Not you, you getting up there was a sure bet I was talking about Ollie!”

Good times in the sun.