New Position, and Training to be a Ranger

No, I'm not dead yet, neither is the blog. I've just been on a Duke of Edinburgh training trip to Snowdonia.

ranger duke of edinburgh dungeons and dragons
I haven't drawn a Chalk Ork in months!


In kind of a surprise, I've been made the Duke of Edinburgh Award Coordinator for my school, with the official reasoning being I just get on with work instead of complaining about it. So... the moral of the story is just get on with your work and you'll be rewarded?

I'm more than happy to do it, as it is effectively breaking a wall I never intended to on my way to building Warhammer 40K as a school tradition, and I'm really excited about multi-classing into Ranger. There's a lot of Dungeons and Dragons nerdage in my approach to this, so brace yourselves.

The Duke of Edinburgh Award (DofE) is an outdoor and general citizenship programme that student neophytes can learn hiking, mountaineering, camping and how to be a decent person. It's one of a few such organisations in the UK, the other two big ones being the Combined Cadet Force and the Scouts. DofE is the least militaristic of the three options, and perhaps the most independent as the Gold standard has you organising everything yourself.

The training trip was half level 1 adventure for new Duke of Edinburgh leaders (like myself), and also half training for far more experienced teachers looking to get their Mountain Leader qualification. To put it in easy to understand terms: Level 1 and level 15 Ranger respectively.Our school is lucky enough to have a few level 18 Rangers and one level 19, just a few more years mountainside experience from becoming an Alpine God.

Naturally, as a flabby neckbeard/physics nerd who bench presses d6 (the small ones too), I was very much at the bottom of the pile in terms of fitness and experience. I walk past the school climbing wall once a week... that is the extent of my Knowledge: Mountaineering.

So, naturally, for my first trip they decide to take me up the tallest mountain in Wales and pitch a tent on the summit during a hurricane.

More on that next time...


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Comments

  1. Having just been up Snowden in rather blustery conditions myself, well done! Love the blog, btw.

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    1. Thanks for commenting! I've just uploaded the story of the camping night, and I'm glad you like the blog. Comments like this make my day!

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