Staff Training: Behind the Scenes at Keswick Adventures
We’ve been excitedly waiting to reopen our outdoor adventure activities following lockdown and, to prepare, have been undergoing some intense staff training.
We run regular training sessions, both in the Lake District and further afield, to make sure all of our instructors are fully qualified and prepared to take you out and about. While accidents are fortunately extremely rare, we want all of our adventurers to be confident that they’re in safe hands, so we keep up-to-date with everything from first aid to water rescue.
The Keswick Adventures team of instructors are all experienced, enthusiastic and friendly, with a real passion for the great outdoors and the Lake District. We pride ourselves on using only the best equipment and people for all of our adventures!
The Lake District has had some heavy rain recently, so the ghylls and canyons have been full, and the water fast-flowing. These make great conditions for training because things are just a bit trickier, so everyone really needs to know their stuff to confidently navigate the water!
Firstly over the weekend we were in Stonycroft Ghyll, where we run ghyll scrambling, and Stoneycroft Canyon further down the river, where canyoning takes place. There are lots of skills to refresh here with fast-flowing water to navigate, waterfalls to jump over, rocks to abseil down, and zip-wires to fix to the gorge! Each activity leader needs to know rope skills, water safety, abseiling, and more. Ghyll scrambling and canyoning are two of our most popular activities, so we get lots of practice on a daily basis, too! Most of us could practically make our way downstream with our eyes closed!
Next up was a trip to nearby Derwentwater where we run most of our other water activities. Here we were working on our rescuing and problem solving skills. Two of our canoes were bound together – as they often are on our camping expeditions – and then swamped with water so that they started sinking. It was up to the team to use their skills and experience to rescue the boats and everyone in them.
Although everyone is kitted out with buoyancy aids when anywhere near the water, it still can be cold and unpleasant if you’re stranded out in the water far away from shore for any length of time. It’s important that all our instructors are not only aware of what they need to do in such a situation, but are well practised so that the rescue procedure is second nature. We’re proud that everyone rose to the occasion and all of our acting ‘men overboard’ (and the canoes) were safely returned to shore!
And today the sun is out, so we’ve been back at Stoneycroft, just to make sure we’re extra prepared!
We’ll look forward to seeing you all from the 1st of April. You can see our Covid updates here.
