SKILLS gained while working in a range of activity centres came in very useful when Matt Collins undertook the challenge of a lifetime recently.
Matt, who is Head of Peak Activity Centres, was one of a group of adult Scouts who trekked to Everest Base Camp as part of their Queen’s Scout Award and Peak is an organisation which operates a number of adventurous activity centres throughout England.
Peak runs seven activity centres across England where activities include water sports, climbing, abseiling, team building challenges and orienteering – many of which Matt was able to put to good use on his journey. He even made sure he took part of “Peak” with him to the most famous peak on Earth too!
He said: “Peak are now a part of Keys Group whose mottos are ‘make every day EPIC’ and ‘Education through Adventure’, both of which were themes I kept with me on this journey!
“Resilience, teamwork, being able to adapt to change, dealing with the unexpected and how to embrace adventure are the things Peak activity centres hopes people take from their time spent with us. And those all certainly proved to be very useful when I was in Nepal! Nothing went to plan right from the start, bad weather hampered flights so we had to take a two day – and very uncomfortable – jeep ride for the first stage of our journey once we had arrived in Kathmandu.
“Some of our party were affected by altitude sickness, which can be very dangerous, so they had to be taken to a lower altitude by helicopter.
“But for all the challenges and changes, the whole thing was simply amazing and seeing Everest was just staggering. The people we met along the trail were so friendly and welcoming. We had taken little packs of colouring pencils for the children and I took a little part of Peak along too in the form of some of our gripping gloves which are used for climbing in our centres.
“So, there’s a part of Peak still there on probably the best known ‘peak’ in the world. And the children were so excited to have them, it was lovely to see.
“After the trek, it was snowing when we arrived at Base Camp. The feeling of accomplishment and excitement was phenomenal. But the last 100 metres felt like running a marathon! In total we walked 18 days and the whole journey took 25 days. What an experience it was.”
Matt now has set his sights on continuing to live Peak’s motto of “make every day an adventure” with his next challenge, tackling an 8000m peak.
He added: “It was a true adventure. There was a different challenge every day and we had to adapt and keep going to achieve our goal. Everything that Peak stands for in one adventure!”
