Mountaineering

I have enjoyed a lifelong love of mountaineering and other mountain sports including rock-climbing, ski touring and mountain-biking. I am a qualified mountain instructor and a member of the Alpine Club and the Eagle Ski Club. I live in the Lake District National Park in England which is one of the most beautiful mountain ranges in Europe, small but perfectly formed. I have climbed many summits via relatively easy routes in the European Alps, especially in the Mont Blanc range. In my youth I enjoyed mountaineering trips with friends to Nepal, India, Pakistan, Peru and New Zealand. Recently, but before the pandemic, I returned to some far off adventures with ascents of 6000m trekking peaks in Bolivia and in Ladakh, India, with my friend Jaime, and a ski-touring trip visit to my son George who is currently based in British Columbia, Canada. I have recently bought an old campervan which has helped with recent low budget trips to the Alps to climb with my son George.

Our routes included traverse of the Purtscheller, South Ridge of the Lagginhorn, Gaspard Premier, Traverse of the Perrons, and NNE Ridge of the Aiguille De L’M.

Being in the mountains is probably an important spiritual element of my life but I have never seriously developed my thinking around that. Meanwhile I enjoy a range of adventure activities, with an uncertain outcome, for all sorts of complex reasons, including simple fun, making close friends, exploring new places and an element of competitiveness. There is a link between my outdoor activities and my work in education, which is my motto ‘No risk, no learning’. This applies to adventures in education and in the outdoors.