ComeClimbWithMe.

This was what I hoped to call my business when it started 24 years ago. Of course 'me', that is not really business-like as to sell it is 'you' I suppose as your logo. Except that all guides or mountaineering professionals are doing something me. It is not boring to be in outdoor instruction, you really do gain a climbing partner even from a client. The leisure industry is a happy place to be from where it starts. In a way it can only go downhill if you wanted the job.

What separates the adventure salesperson is often character. The personal approach is key to appeal as the company someone wants to be with when having fun. In this reality you will appeal as someone already known to their close ones, friends and family. Well it is not being purchased if they were real friends, so it is worth adding that the character seeked is probably at least just outside the normal social group. Due to the sporting aspect, fitness is hard to avoid in the promotion but the fact lingers that you need to be affective as a companion since a hill or a mountain if presented inaccurately doesn’t seem worth the detour, just hard and boring when on the easy sections.

Forceful, dominant, frivolous, charming. Strong, compelling, alluring. Not daring, however compulsive would be okay, traditionally to my upbringing from reading and a general sense of who is who. Character flaws traditionally are what makes personality in the famed outdoor person. Daring however is not professional client relationship despite the allure I think. Claiming to be a sort of nature guide since most happens outside, skilled at viewing sights off the main path, those requiring a late return, adventure most probable. I see these expectations as sensible in myself. The comparable experience is that my training has always involved testing the water to base for the next level of activity and measure of capability. Only by being appreciated will you unlock these skills which experience has taught you to release. You are very lucky to able to roam as work. Reliability is how many will promote themselves, safe hands. High up the skills ladder. It is best to arrive at what position a client is at themselves rather than produce a skill session to dazzle though a business might thrive on delivering action before learning. It makes sense those with a natural leaning will stay. In Britain we have countryside everywhere which can be preparation for serious days or weekends so the necessity of travel is secondary to the necessity to train and prepare. Straight in at the deep end this is 'Where is the most dazzling accessible hard walking ?'

A strong contender is Glencoe, possibly the most attractive accessible wonder in Britain where you can combine the view so easily but the conquest is from my few vists I would call only achieved with serious effort. A bit longer and less simple. Dazzling, well the glen has very wide open slopes making a massive feeling and a tiny appearance of human presence, both marvellous and quaint, tempting yet deceiving for this is a long way you can see. The distances are longer than the attraction may suggest. It is a full body experience to test the promise with short routes, to get off the high ground perhaps not quicker than to complete the circuit anyway as it is steep in so many places. Vertically it is a kilometre horizontally you can see 30 just from the foot of the glen so grand is the view. I find the biggest sky from then expansive landscape very is seductive and in summer with long days the distances are compelling. You will need 15 miles to complete any circuit over the tops and 8.5 hours using Naismiths walking calculation like this. 3 miles an hour is 5 hours. 1 minute each 10m of ascent being 100 and 1 min each slow re-ascent or descent being 50, long enough to need 30 minutes of rest twice to hopefully not underestimate. 8.5 hours.

There is a great thriller film that begins on the mountains here climbing a serious but accessible rock face. It goes straight into the face of danger beautifully making you want to be on that rockface. Slight mishaps needs to be handled with confidence to feel able to do alot here. Multi-pitch climbing is best appreciated with confidence I think than bluff. The walking is climbing in itself so instils the same grand exhaustion and can remind a climber how important it is to enjoy what they are doing.

So instruction. Who would have the best time? Would I share enough or give. Unless with friends or a club it is a long journey to climb a multipitch route having the rope always above you. Most people would not imagine it otherwise until experienced upon seeing captivating film sequences of friends making steep mountain faces look entertaining. I am not qualified anyway to do this so luckily can talk about it while walking as the best gauge to how interested you might be. To share the trained decision with you to ake a turn on the sharp end of the rope does not start with climbing but hillsides really are not so different in practice. Modern climbing since ropes became dynamic and able to hold a fall without the strong chance of breaking your back still is most fun not falling off. Walking with a rope is a good idea and climbing is where your would not consider moving without one. It is more practice than theory because it is personal preparation. Glencoe is only an example. In truth it is a difficult place to walk but it closely relates to the path by your house if you practice and prepare so building confidence.

I lived a summer in the North of Scotland and it makes me choke on the possible. Long days and long light for travel on foot or by bike and wide glens that go a long way. It is frequently a long way to connect anything to the other roadside and it is odd to think these big hills are small in certain worldly descriptions. Often the height is less but the distance is still long. Shorter by half from the roadside is An Teallach further North again though I managed to make this mountain a full 40 mile walk on a few occasions. I was rewarded twice to be above the clouds. It is amazing to not expect this. The clouds did not seem lower or odd but then to get above them and find it was not actually a cloudy day but a temperature inversion is fabulous. It is a gift no-one else even knows about living underneath, all on a climb of only 1000m above sea level. It happened to me 3 times in that year. By averaging from time at work and not walking that makes 12 days like that, certainly a possibility to catch that experience and a reason for an early start. It may not and should not last all day but oddly can and you go back underneath to town aware that an airplane experience is 900m above.

I was by Ullapool where I lived for a year. Beside the Assynt Peninsular, north on the Torridonian Sandstone group. These mountains are on top of the rock known as Lewesian Gneiss which is truly different to walk on than anything else. Added to remoteness feeling is it's rough uniform timeless feel for walking on. The Assynt is sometimes peat but largely patterns of knock and lochan features that feel like they have never known trees. Perhaps before the last ice age. Also here you would find the fault line known as the Moine Thrust. It makes for a third main landscape player of the region. Folded Westwards metamorphic rocks reach up to a few kilometres of the coast leaving a narrow region of Gneiss unfolded. I knew this was likely to be the place of some photos I had once seen by some calling. The Assynt is like seeing giant dolphins and whales riding on top of the dry land. It is like 6 Ayers rocks and you can climb them without breaking the law too.

My longest walk in the area setting off one evening, went over Ben More Assynt and then into the Assynt topography malking 60 miles non-stop barring short rests. I had walking legs here that just had to get home as there are few cafes except in the villages and there is not wild foraging either. You take in what you need to get out. There are good bothies in the region too so good locations to extend a trip comfortably. This region got me close to sea life and folk stories in books that really had meaning in surroundings. I have made a series of my own pictures to celebrate the effectiveness of a book I have read a dozen times set in the coastal regions of Scotland and Ireland including which seem like Ross-Shire. I was not really aware of the Modern society in the area to the extent of discussing the old traditions yet the magic is still there due to the power of landscape and the smaller sizes of the settlements and what else I don't know. It was exhausting getting about but with work I could do it and go home and the hillwalkers and sailing networks are respected as open paths and bothies show.

Immersion is the greatest pleasure and what makes me confident to instruct and lead walks but is a journey of immediate rewards. So the basic training or techniques practiced and respected will allow you to take yourself on the trails.