Page 20 - Wish Stream Year of 2017

group after a decent but long day the day before. There was generally good enthusiasm for the day at Laggan Wolftrax, a trail centre about an hour away from Fort William, and a beautiful part of Scotland. We journeyed onto the red route, which took us around the back of the mountain. It was a tricky descent which challenged the group, but at the end of the day following our return to the vehicles it was agreed that it had been a good day for entering the ‘stretch zone’.
Day 5 took us to Nevis Range Trail Centre, a spectacular centre that has a gondola uplift. We took the gondola to the top in order to ride
the red run down. It was a fast and technical descent; however, the skills of the group had definitely improved.
Day 6 was a return to the Nevis Range Trail Cen- tre, and a run around the 2007 World Champi- onship red run around the base of the mountain. It was a thoroughly challenging and tough route, with a few breaks necessary in order to maintain morale for the group, who were suffering from fatigue at this point. It was a technical and excit- ing run to end the trip, and the group headed back fulfilled. We returned to RMAS the next day.
Exercise LANISTER CADET – Big Bear AT
After our time at West Point on the Sandhurst Cup competition we headed to Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains. Sit- ting at 6,752ft we were met with blazing heat in the heart of a rather sleepy resort town. With the assistance of two instructors, our groups planned a set of walks that would challenge us, but also allow us to see the great span of terrain that was available in the San Bernardino area.
We began with a day hike up a fairly steady trail that intercepted the Pacific Crest Trail, a stag-
gering 2,659 mile long distance hike. This was a good chance to shake out our legs and get some great views of Lake Baldwin. We also had the opportunity to recce the start of hikes that we intended to use for the rest of the week.
The original plan for day two had to be altered due to the snow line being much lower than expected for the time of year, so we headed up the other side of the lake on the Bertha Peak trail. Due to fatigue it made sense to reduce the difficulty of the hike and ease the OCdts into the
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