Iain Taylor

• Mountain Leader
• Rock Climbing Instructor
• Outdoor 1st Aid
• Ski Party Leader

After graduating with a degree in Outdoor Activities I worked for Outward Bound Ullswater in the English Lake District for three years.

From there I was ‘headhunted’ to go work for Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) in Maine USA. Working on the ‘Problem Populations’ programmes in Maine, New Hampshire and Florida.

After 18 months spent working and travelling in New Zealand, Australia, South East Asia, India and Nepal I arrived back in the UK and built a career working in Further and Higher education delivering vocational outdoor courses to young people who also wished to build a career in the outdoors. After 24 years, three educational establishments and two head of department roles, I took voluntary redundancy and became self-employed working and a Free-Lance outdoor instructor.

I now deliver outdoor activity programmes to young people, students, disability groups and corporate clients year-round throughout the UK.

I have had many big adventures and several misadventures!! But the adventure which is always first to mind is my training and attempt at completing the Bob Graham round, a challenge of a circuit around 42 Lake District peaks covering approximately 70 miles, climbing 28,000 feet and descending 28,000 feet in less than 24 hours. In winter.

The adventure came through going into the mountains to train, often alone and running for 10-14 hours, in blizzards, avalanche conditions, temperatures of minus 20 Celsius, storm force winds, much of the time in the dark.

The ability to endure and enjoy the challenge the conditions brought as well as navigate accurately gave me more satisfaction than the round itself.

Read about it here.

I can talk passionately on a great number of subjects, history, music, geography, fauna, UK fell running, mountains of the UK, without knowing much about any of them.