See that above? Not bad for a hand-held effort. Just ignore all the blurred streetlights in the bottom right corner. Basically I was just really lazy and couldn’t be bothered to get my tripod. No other excuse.

It’s been an adventurous first week into my challenge, so here’s a brief run through of what I’ve done and why.

Saturday 12th: Leading a navigation workshop to my careers colleagues. The time-tested advice is always to practice sessions with friends, family and co-workers first before delivering anything through a company/professionally. Does it really offer any benefits?

I think it does. It’s one thing to be a qualified mountain leader, having proven the ability to lead a group over complex mountain terrain in the night. But it’s another entirely to break that skillset down into the core components and convey the most essential things in an engaging way to others. Basically, the mountain leader award is not a teaching qualification, and how you teach has a big impact on the success of your workshops.

Usually I teach Duke of Edinburgh students, all teenagers, all used to learning in schools. Teaching adults is much more challenging as there’s usually a lot of pre-existing knowledge, some of which is useful but other things not so much (”just find North!! being one of the less useful things). My main point is that it is very worthwhile trying out your teaching on friends first and then reflecting on it after.

Sunday 13th: A night hike to a sunrise – Peak District.

Why bother with this? How will it help me become a better mountain leader?

One of the things that people worry about when going towards their Mountain Leader qualification is the night navigation. This is probably the least practiced part for most people, simply because it demands a huge amount of preparation, self confidence and a good system in place for when things go wrong. I try to do fairly regular night hikes to sunrise locations to keep my night navigation sharp. But I also do it because sunrise, and sunset, are the best times for lighting and landscape photography. It helps to have engaging photos to help with promoting the outdoors and getting people outside as much as possible. But there’s another more important reason for me too.

I’m currently making an ebook guide to some walking routes which will need some sunrise photos. I’m not sure it will be ready within a year but I’ll be mentioning my ebook projects quite a lot as the weeks roll on! If you’re reading this and hoping to gain more employment or income from your passion for the outdoors then writing and photography can actually be one way of doing that. Check out the Outdoor Writers and Photographers Guild for more info.

Coming up next week…planning walks for the Lowland Leader qualification, positive psychology, and how I stay motivated for big projects through tough times.