Spring time… Blue skies, nice warm afternoons, green grass and colorful flowers all “spring” to mind. It is a time of the year welcomed by everyone but especially people who have experienced long, cold, snowy winters. Like people from Scotland!
Guy Sloan who is an outstanding mountain biking counselor (also helped with climbing, mountain boarding and caving in 2012) is from the Isle of Arran, Scotland. Last week most of the UK experienced abnormally cold and snowy weather but Arran was one of the worst hit spots!
Morgan, Guy and Ross from 2012
Around a week ago Arran was hit by a freak blizzard and ice storm conditions which knocked out the mains power to the entire island (the island isn’t huge!) and with winds in excess of 50mph th ferries that would normally have helped supply the island could not help them. Guy tells us they had 200 engineers shipped over to fix the damaged electricity pylons which had collapsed under the weight of ice stacked on them. Food supplies had to be airlifted to remote parts of the island until the wind had died off enough for the ferries to begin working again.
Guys workplace was turned into an incident control room housing all the emergency services, engineers and mountain rescue volunteers so Guy was put to work coordinating phone calls. Guys home town set up a free food shelter which helped everyone who had no electricity to keep warm and cook food. He says everything is now getting back to normal with the snow slowly melting…
Guy said it was like a “never-ending cabin day but with snow rather than heavy dew”
These experiences and stories that our international staff members bring with them is what makes CCB a truly international experience for our campers who learn so much about such a wide rang of places around the world.
Guy-It’s warming up at CCB, we will see you in a few weeks!
