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Dundonnell ATC Course

Posted by Max Hunter on 02nd November, 2014

Ghlas Thuill

Sgurr Creag

For the last 2 weeks I have been working on an Adventure Training Course, run through Cameron Barracks in Inverness (ATC Scotland). I was working with a group from the 2 Royal Anglian (Infantry) and they were with me to do their Summer Mountaineering Foundation course (SMF) + and expedition.

On the first day we headed off to our base in Dundonnell, at the head of Little Loch Broom. The weather was unfortunately particularly wild – with strong winds, and heavy rain. Within the first couple of days we walked into winds up to 50mph, with horizontal rain, and hail. Later in the week we did manage to find enough good weather to get up Bidein a Glas Thuill (on An Teallach) which was great. The weather was too poor to complete the second munro or the ridge unfortunately – I’ll come back another day for those.

Throughout the 5 day course we were looking at emergency rope-work without a harness, and on days 4 and 5 we introduced the harness, to look at simple scrambling techniques for ascent and descent.

During the course I had some good ideas for a further afield expedition, but when the weather proved to be so poor on the west coast (causing landslides on the A82), we headed to the East and met up with Caroline Tombs, to reduce the ratios to 1:3. We started on the Ciste Crag and did a few routes, which proved to be harder than they looked in big boots, and wet/slippery rock – but this was good to force the team further outside of their comfort zones. The next day we went into Coire an t-Sneachda, and got onto the Twin Ribs. By the time we got to the Fiacaill Ridge, the wind had not dropped enough for a safe scramble, so we used the rest of the day for a mountain walk. On the next day we went to Kingussie to transition from scrambling to rock climbing – the rock was cold, and still wet in places, so it made it exciting for many. By the end of the course, most people had taken some simple top-rope falls/slips, and expanded their comfort zones. The course mainly focused on values based leadership, leadership styles, coping strategies, to make them more effective in an operational context – most of them have already served in Afghanistan.

My comfort zone was pushed when I was woken up on Monday night with wet feet – inside my sleeping bag. By headtorch, I found that the torrential rain had started to stream inside my tent – dripping from the inner. My down bag had mostly mopped the water up, but there was a huge puddle under my mat too. I resorted to a strategy called ‘retreat’! I left my bowl and mug to catch the 2 worst dripping areas, and slept in the top half of the tent. In the morning I had caught almost enough for my cup of tea!

Thank you to the 2 Royal Anglian group for such fun over the 11 days