Have you ever looked at an OS map and wondered why the entire country has been chopped up into a giant grid? Those little blue squares are part of the British National Grid and they're the foundation of one of the most useful skills we have in navigation - being able to describe exactly where we are. The system divides Great Britain into progressively smaller areas, allowing us to turn a position on the landscape into a grid reference. A four-figure grid reference identifies

When I first started climbing, I think I assumed that getting better would mostly mean getting stronger. Stronger arms, stronger fingers, being able to pull harder and hang on for longer. I'm gradually discovering that climbing has other ideas! Recently I've been spending some time bouldering with Connor (Connor Martin Coaching) and working specifically on something far less dramatic: my feet, my balance and the position of my body on the wall...and it's fascinating. Watching

Open Mountains: Because the outdoors should feel open to everyone There is a moment we see again and again in the mountains, someone reaches a viewpoint, stands on a summit, scrambles over a rock for the first time or simply stops, looks around and realises that they love the outdoors and they can do it. For those of us who spend a lot of time outdoors, it is easy to forget what a privilege that feeling can be. Because while the mountains themselves might be open, access to t

There is something quite extraordinary about stepping outside a mountain refuge in the middle of the night. At 2 a.m. in the Pyrenees, far away from the glow of towns and streetlights, the sky looked completely different. Thousands of stars were visible above the mountains — far more than we normally see at home. Beautiful? Absolutely. But for generations of travellers, sailors, shepherds and explorers, that sky was also something else. It was a map. Before GPS, there was the

There is something slightly dangerous about achieving a goal isn't there? You spend months, sometimes years, working towards it. You train, practise, log those mountain days, get things wrong, get better, worry about assessment and eventually, hopefully, someone shakes your hand and says, 'Congratulations. You’ve passed'. But then it begins....you're now in the danger zone. Let me tell you why. I passed my Mountain Leader assessment in June 2026 (after 13 years of dithering a