While one of the country’s best-known adventurers was locked up, five children were let loose in the mountains. Here’s what happened…
We called it The Adventure Effect – but it was an imprisonment of sorts. We invited professional adventurer Al Humphreys to the heart of the Lake District – then gave him a stay he wasn’t expecting.
“I suspected that there was some sort of mischief afoot,” Al tells us. “I knew it was going to be something out of the ordinary. I arrived at the hostel loaded with bags full of mountain gear, wetsuits and the like, getting excited about spending some time outdoors.”
And then… he was locked in ‘The Lab’, a small white hut in the wilderness, for 72 hours. To pass the time, he was given a series of ‘non-adventures’ (example: walking in a figure-of-eight until being told to stop). Meanwhile, we took five children into the mountains for the first time and gave them the greatest adventures of their lives: canyoning, canoeing and hiking to a fell summit.
We asked Al what the hardest moments were. “The first couple of hours! I was SO bored! My mind was racing, going crazy. It was like a detox from my addictions to conversation, screen time and feeling that I always need to be DOING something! As time passed I settled into it, and appreciated that it was a fascinating and useful experience to be going through (although certainly not fun).”
“I came away feeling so spoiled with all that I take for granted. But the kids soaked in the outdoors like a sponge, almost visibly growing and expanding as they absorbed the space, the silence, the scale of the landscape, and the growing sense of their own potential and capabilities as they tested themselves in those landscapes.”
Watch how the children (and Al!) fared athttps://www.yha.org.uk/adventureeffect
