No Ropes!

After our day off, it was straight back to work and the biggest challenge of the course so far. We wondered why our instructors had such smug smiles on their faces as we set off, but when we saw what lay at the end of our drive, we understood why.


In fact, when we saw the bulk of Malham Cove looming ahead of us, all of us bar Noel and Rocco went and hid as the prospect of climbing Malham Cove in snow and ice was just too scary.

Our instructors cruelly kept us believing we'd got to climb Malham Cove until right at the last moment. Rocco and Noel told the rest of us later that they had worked out that our challenge had to be different, as they'd spotted that there were no climbing ropes amongst all the gear.

What we were asked to do was to climb, both up and down, the steps at the side of the cove. This might sound quite straightforward, but actually it wasn't. As Malham Cove is such a tourist trap, even in winter, so many people had been up and down the steps that the snow on the steps, awkward at the best of times, had become so compressed that it had become solid ice. It was potentially lethal.

Our instructors gave us some useful tips for retaining a sure footing and keeping our balance, even so we made good use of 4 paws rather than 2! As a reward we were allowed to do the same climb using crampons. What a difference that made!

Lots of love, the Bears Unlimited students xxx