Waking up in the morning on the 18th of December, a Saturday, I was obviously both excited and nervous for next few days to come. Not only did I have that on my mind, but the fact that I had left packing my bag for the weekend to the last minute was not the greatest idea that I've ever had, resulting in me being the last person to arrive at where all the applicants were supposed to meet - great first impression, I know!
Everyone seemed really nice so far and first impressions were starting to form; my first impression however was accompanied by me slipping over on flat ground! Cringe. As if slipping up on the ice once wasn't enough, I ended up slipping about 10 billion more times up our first hill climb. I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into when I realised that this was only the beginning. After the numerous times of climbing up the hill we were all obviously getting tired, but at the top we were greeted by an amazing sunset which made it feel worthwhile.
Now on most of the expeditions I've been on there's always something surprising that happens that you wouldn't necessarily have expected, and this selections weekend wasn't going to be an exception - so we were casually finding our way to Mel's house at around midnight, took a slightly wrong turn and ended up witnessing a car crash where the woman seemed definitely didn't seem with it! (edited by mel!!) Great.
After that, we got back to the house and started reluctantly setting up our tent. I felt like it was a dream come true when Mel and Jess said we could sleep inside that night, although pretty sure they made up for that suffering by making us climb yet another hill about 3000 times. It was pretty fun though, and we all even ended up racing each other with the little bit of energy we had left.
Going to bed at around 2 and waking up between 5 and 6 am was...nice. We ended up walking for what felt like a lifetime in the thickened snow doing some navigation skills and oh look...more hills. After doing so many hills however I was starting to get used to them, although energy levels were plummeting and having a drink of water was out of the question as all of my water had completely frozen.
In addition to that, the next few days we had to go and do little team building activities in the town of Weymouth, looking absolutely fantastic as you can imagine! Doing these activities with the team was really fun and helped us to bond even more.
The next day we sat indoors, snowed in and all snuggled up watching 'Cool Runnings'. We then went and met with Hannah where we climbed even more hills! My favourite!
Even through the physical toughness and bitingly cold weather, the selection weekend was amazing! I met some great people that I can't wait to go to Mont Blanc with, and this sounds cheesy but the excitement literally grows with each day!
Thanks Faye!!!
Everyone seemed really nice so far and first impressions were starting to form; my first impression however was accompanied by me slipping over on flat ground! Cringe. As if slipping up on the ice once wasn't enough, I ended up slipping about 10 billion more times up our first hill climb. I started to wonder what I had gotten myself into when I realised that this was only the beginning. After the numerous times of climbing up the hill we were all obviously getting tired, but at the top we were greeted by an amazing sunset which made it feel worthwhile.
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