One of the most impressive things I found when I first joined RAMSOC was the way the walks were lead, by capable, cheerful leaders who (almost) always seemed to know where they were going, as well as chat to everyone in the group to keep even the most reluctant hill-climber going. So, when the opportunity came up to train to lead walks myself, I couldn’t think of a better way to give back to the club. Our training day began when we arrived in Edale car park, handing out maps, compasses and headtorches and trying to ignore the persistent drizzle. We split into two groups with a mix of trainees and experienced leaders, and set off on different routes up the hill. Our first exercise was general navigation and also involved using our surroundings to locate ourselves. One trainee was in charge of map reading, whilst the other two were banned from looking at their maps and compasses at all, but had to rely on their memory and powers of observation to re-orientate once we arrived at a ne...

Hello again Ramsoc! Our blog series continues and I have taken up the task of writing about our weekend away to Minehead, in the Exmoor National Park between 5 th and 7 th February 2016 (apologies, I’m a  bit of a stickler when it comes to detail like that, and I will probably remember it for a long while yet – strange, I know). This weekend took place a mere two weeks after the end of exam season, so we were naturally all excited to escape Nottingham for a weekend as a chance to catch our collective breath. I assume the club has visited Exmoor at least once in the past, but it was only last year that we started going again. As I was on my year abroad last year, I obviously didn’t go, so naturally I was enthralled at the prospect of visiting an entirely new area. There has to be some perk of doing a four-year degree after all. My first impressions of Exmoor (months before we went) were already positive – from the photos I could see it was a beautiful area by the coast with...