Y Garn, Glider Fawr, Y Gribbin

I want to talk about this day on my week in snowdon because i learnt a very important lesson about leadership that day. My first year group were with a different second year this day and myself and two other seond years had decided to do the three peaks in the title. This was near the end of the week and from the start of this day my shoulder injury was giving me alot of pain from my rucksack. I see myself as quite a mentally strong person, but on this day my defences were worn down, i was feeling ill, my shoulder hurt and i was prett worn out. I am not making excuses for my performance on that day, i am simply stating the psychological and physilogical state i was in. On the assent of Y garn i was already struggling to keep up with the other two second years, i knew they were going to get a pace on and i was determined to keep up with them. One of these guys noticed i was struggling and started shouting me encouragement to keep going. With this encouragement i dug deep into myself and pushed forwards, when i slowed again more encouragement was shouted down. We got to the top of Y garn in under an hour, and when you take into consideration that we went up the north-east face of it, that time is quite impressive. After that the two other guys in my group came over to me to see if i was ok and congratulated me on struggling up. after a 5 minute rest we cracked out the other two peaks and we got down all within a few hours after our accent.

This day i was in a group of peers, equal in most respects, yet even in a group of peers there is always going to be a leader, elected or not a leader will emerge in a group. The leader which emerged today changed his approach that day from being very autocratic in the morning, making me continue to the top, and then later on in the day we cam across a situation when democracy was more effective.

To descend we needed to find Y Gribbin, however the clag was in and visability was minimal, we could see nothing but each other so we got a map and out decided on an appropriate course of action. We came to the conclusion that if we hit the second of the two gliders then we had gone to far and we would take a bearing from there to Y Gribbin, as the case was we stumbled accross out descent route when the high winds blew the clag away for a vital few seconds.

All in all i really enjoyed this day. even though i struggled with mental and physical exertion for the most part. With the help of my group i was able to bounce of their encouragement and complete the walk in a fast time.

Snowdonia 2011

Ok well, I spent a week in the Snowdon area in November 2011. As a second year on my degree it was my job that week to take a group of first years out each day and adopt the leadership role in the group to get them through the days hike and even more importantly, for the group to enjoy the day.

The Topic I really want to discuss here is motivation. I found my group were struggling to get them-selves motivated, especially at the start of the walk on the first day. At first i felt stumped; I was not sure how to sort this issue out. However as the day progressed many of the members accepted the walk and started to enjoy it. One person in my group still was not enjoy the walk.

The route for that day was quite simple, up the Pyg (pub) track, summit Mt Snowdon, and then descend down the Snowdon ranger path. The issue was not a physical one, the walk is considered to be an easy stroll. i thought about how i could get this member motivated to keep walking. Within the first hour they were already lagging at the back of the group, so i dropped back to chat to them. I asked them about why they were on this course, and why they were here this week. after a little while i was able to persuade this member to look at the days walk in a more positive way. this new way of thinking had a huge effect on their attitude to the walk and by the end of the day they were at the front of the group and in a good mood to learn in.

People when in the outdoors are motivated in different ways. Some of us are out there for the challenge of pitting ourselves against the elements, some of us are out there for the location, some of us are out there to find somewhere to think in peace. The member of my group who needed motivating really just needed to be reminded of what made them get out of bed that morning and start walking. I really do not want to discuss Maslow's hierarchy of needs here because everyone who knows anything about motivation knows about this. Instead i simply just want to leave you with a quote from Johann Gottfried Von Herder to think about 'Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.'

What it is i Do.

My name is Tom Parsons, i am a 19 year old FdSc Outdoor Education Student at Truro College. This blog is about mountain Leadership. I will be writing down my experiences on the mountain-sides of the British Ilse and be looking and discussing psychological theories which are useful to a coach or instructor. I will also be putting in pictures of days out on the mountain.