Scouting is all about doing activities, and to do these we need permits (something to do with safety). This weekend’s aim was to help get people permits and prepare others (like Explorers) to get them in the future.  Wild Wolf was joining the County Activities’ Team’s weekend to get permits and experience.

On the Friday, we met at Scout Park nice and early, trying not to arrive too late, but with Scout timings the minibus was a little late. However once it arrived we set off with haste as we had a long trip to Bethesda (a town in Wales, near Snowdonia, if you didn’t know). We had plenty of snacks to keep us fed on the journey. When we arrived (very late in the evening) we quickly went to sleep to get some rest for the next day (luckily we were staying in a hostel so no tents to put up except for Marlon who is trying to get 100 nights sleeping outside in a year).

On Saturday, we had an early start for our day of hiking and scrambling. There were a few different groups depending on what you were doing. Will was doing his T1 assessment and Marlon his assessor’s assessment, with both passing (meaning we can do more fun things!). My group on the other hand was doing some micro-navigation and scrambling (no-one was getting assessed). Our day was very nice without bad weather (well – at least until the way back) and we all enjoyed the experience. We even learnt some new skills such as using ropes to help people up steeper stretches. And, eventually, we reached the summit, and got a bunch of lovely views of the area.

While the weather got a bit worse near the end it was certainly better than the all day torrential rain we had feared and when we arrived back our spirits were pretty high (maybe due to the biscuits and coffee available when we arrived) and we set about drying our stuff before sitting down for dinner. Then it was time to rest because quite a few of us were going out again for some night nav.

So after a short rest (some were even lucky enough to get a bit of sleep) we set out again, again with different groups. We took a minibus to our starting point before we split up. My group was doing some micro-navigation and we managed to spot light from the other groups a few times, we all learned a bit and also realised that there were some things we needed to improve.

The next day we decided to go climbing but all the nearby spots were full! So instead we had a calm morning beside a river, recovering from the long day we had had. We even got in a little swimming (the water wasn’t too cold)!

We then started our long journey back to London and Scout Park where we quickly cleaned out the minibus and packed the kit away, as we were all tired and ready to go home!

– by Thomas Simpson