Go Ape

We’re delighted to be welcoming so many people into Thetford Forest to have a go on Go Trax.

10 people can go in one session, costing £20 each. There are three off road tracks to try out and you can go round as many times as you like within your time!

Hopefully see you there soon!  Oh…and can you spot the person wearing one of our brand new tees?!

Scouting For Girls have been off the beatn track with Go Trax – All Terrain Segway.

The guys tested out our epic new forest adventure with a down-to-earth twist, at Thetford Forest, Suffolk prior to their concert recently.

Check out the video and hear what they had to say

Frankie Sandford and her Suffolk band mates Una Healy, Rochelle Wiseman and Vanessa White spent some time with us in the trees at Thetford Forest …warming up before their performance there on Saturday night for 6,000 fans.

It’s all part of the Forestry Commission Live Music Series which has seen the likes of Scouting for Girls performing in the forest (and trying out our newest adventure: Go Trax: All Terrain Segway).

Apprently, we have helped Una conquer her fear of heights. Well done Una!!

 Read the full story

Here’s the first of our guest blogs from the guys that won the first Go Ape Adventure Bursary of the year. They got £600 worth of equipment to help them achieve their challenge: completing the Welsh 3000s.

“It’s generally agreed there’s 14 or 15 mountains in Wales are over 3000 ft high. Our challenge was to reach the top of all of them in one day.

For those of you with an enquiring mind that’s about 46.5km with 3,900m of climb, or, if you prefer 27.9 miles and 12,800 ft of climb. However, those distances are from the top of the first mountain to the top of the last.  You also have to get to the top of the first (Snowdon, the highest point in England or Wales) and off the last, so it’s actually quite a lot further.

We set off at 5.30am from the Llanberis car park at the foot of Snowdon.  Our plan was to dog trot most of the way, actually we took a dog with us as well who did his best to pull up over a variety of cliffs throughout the day.

There were 4 in our group, our other group of 5 set off at the same time but were intending to take it at steadier pace.

Our first ascent was Crib Goch, not for the faint hearted.  If you can imagine walking along your roof ridge for about a mile with a steep fall, steeper than your roof, on either side then that’s Crib Goch. 

We reached the top of Snowdon just after 7:00am and ran down fairly briskly until we reached our short cut, down a steep gully.  It didn’t look too bad from the top.  But once committed to what had looked like grass banks turned out to be slippery rocks covered by moss.  I fell quite a way, luckily my fall was cushioned by my sarnies, which I mashed to a pulp, yum yum.

Having reached back down to the bottom we had to climb back up, bag a peak or two then tackle Tryffan – a great scramble.  I have to confess we didn’t jump between the twin pillars at the top.

A few more tops then back down to just a couple of hundred metres before we tackled the final section known as the Carnedd section.  This involves a huge, grinding ascent, it’s one of those climbs when you keep thinking you’ve reached the top only to see another ridge ahead of you!  However, once on top, apart from being about 12 miles long, this section is pretty easy going.  There’s one outlying peak that you have to detour about a kilometre off the route to reach with quite a descent and climb, but once you’ve done that it’s simply a question of doing the miles at a steady trot over the broken surface.

It took us about 11½ hours from the top of the 1^st to top of the last peak, but another 3 hours or so getting on and off, so about 14 hours in total.  Luckily the weather was good, fairly chilly but dry.

It’s a great challenge, because it’s tough, but achievable for any, very determined, reasonably fit person.  There’s a great website www.welsh3000s.co.uk that describes it in far more detail and is well worth a visit.”

Our tribes from our 26 Go Ape adventures around the country have just completed their annual charity giveaway. We challenge our course managers and their teams to decide who locally will most benefit from our contribution. Check out the winners below of some of the happy recipients, including Sustrans, the UK’s leading sustainable transport charity, RNLI lifeboat and lifeguard service and the Scouts Association in West Glamorgan.

Two of our instructors from Go Ape Grizedale have just arrived back from their 2 ½ month trekking and mountaineering trip in Patagonia.

They travelled through Chile and Argentina,  going on extended treks and climbing volcanoes and mountains up to 6300m. 

During  their 5 day Torres del Paine trek they saw about 5 people in the wilderness, trekking over mountain passes, next to glaciers and through windy and hostile weather.

Patagonia is one of the wildest places still left on earth. Take a look at the amazing pictures of their adventure!

When Kevin Shannon was a kid all he wanted to be was an explorer. Now he’s all grown up he’s making his dreams come true by taking on a zero-emissions solo challenge to circumnavigate the globe, with nothing but a couple of panniers and a pushbike. Read his story, then find out how you could win £600 towards your next adventure.

Get on your bike and go global

What do you want to be when you grow up? A ballet dancer? A fireman?

If you’d asked Kevin Shannon that when he was a kid, he’d have said: ‘An explorer.’ Maybe you did too.

But Kevin’s a bit different. Instead of getting a sensible, steady office job that pays the bills, when he grew up he decided to make his childhood dreams of high adventure come true, and actually become an explorer.

Which is, of course, why we like him. Just before Easter, his bags all packed and ready, he said goodbye to his mum and dad and friends and set out to see the whole wide world. He will circumnavigate the globe on a three-year solo expedition, raising money for the charity Combat Stress as he goes.

‘After living and studying in London I decided I wasn’t ready to settle down and face a career. I still had to cure my wanderlust; I still needed to explore; I still wanted an adventure,’ he says.

Growing up in Mobberley in Cheshire, he heard grand tales of the village’s most famous hero, George Mallory, who died trying to be the first man to the summit of Mount Everest.

‘The tales captivated me so much, I dreamt of being an explorer myself,’ Kev says. ‘Every bit of my free time was spent exploring the village I grew up in, the local woodland, following the little stream that passes by the village as far as possible to see where it ended, hoping that one day I would be able to explore far-off lands.’

Now Kev is fulfilling his ambition to travel far, far away. To add to the challenge, he’s resolved to complete the journey with zero emissions. So he’ll pedal over land and either row or use the power of the wind to cross several seas and both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

That’s no mean feat. As he says: ‘This is my Everest.’

To find out more about Kev and keep up-to-date with his progress, have a look at his website www.becauseitisthere.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @kev_shannon

GRAB! £600 towards your next adventure

If you’re a budding explorer planning a grand land-based expedition then enter our draw to win a Go Ape adventure bursaries. Every 60 days we’re giving away £600 to put towards a life-challenging trip. You could be next. To win the cash, we want you to tell us all about what you’re aiming to do – submit your story. Good luck!

Bananaman made an appearance in Edinburgh this weekend when a band of Gorillas were celebrating the launch of our new course at Beecraigs Country Park. Check out The Chase: Chapter 1 now

Here’s a video of the action from last weekends fun in Cardiff city centre.

Disguised as gorillas, the free runners perfromed street stunts in celebration of the opening of our new course in Pembrey Country Park  on Saturday March 27.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTkVoqvWbsc

When Diane van Deren discovered she had epilepsy, she took up running to quash the seizures and became one of the world’s top endurance athletes. Her latest challenge is to reach the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas in less than 24 hours. Read her incredible story, and find out how you could win £600 towards your next adventure

In the animal kingdom, if there’s one thing that sets us humans apart, it’s our spirit of adventure

Put us on the edge of a desert and we’ll find a way to cross it; set us on the ocean and we’ll sail across it; stand us at the foot of a mountain and we’ll climb it. At Go Ape, we celebrate that spirit – it’s what makes us tick.

Which is why we got a bit overexcited when we heard about Diane van Deren. One of the world’s elite ultra-marathon runners, Diane recently set off on a trip to South America, where she’s planning a speed-climb up Aconcagua.

At 6,962m, Aconcagua is the tallest mountain in the Americas. Incredibly, Diane and her team are attempting to cover the 2,592 metres from base camp to the summit in less than 24 hours. Just thinking about this made our legs burn.

Not surprisingly, we were pretty inspired when we heard about her plans. But then we learned a bit more about her – and got even more inspired.

In 1997, the American had a golf ball-sized chunk of her brain removed as radical treatment for epilepsy.

The surgery seriously affected her memory and she now has to mark out her trail runs with sticks or rocks to remind herself where she’s been, and receives specialist coaching to help her keep track of routes, gear and hundreds of other things the rest of us remember without a second’s thought.

This, we thought, is one impressive lady.

Her tale of adventure began when she was pregnant with her third child and started having seizures. She discovered she could make them stop by running, so whenever she felt the tingling that came just before a fit, she’d grab her trainers and sprint for the door.

Then came the op, which stopped the seizures, and she hasn’t suffered another fit in the 13 years since. But having part of her brain removed didn’t stop her love of running, or her incredible endurance.

Last year, the 50-year-old became the first woman to complete the gruelling 430-mile Yukon Arctic Ultra, reckoned to be the hardest solo race on foot in the world.

And she once pulled a sled packed with 20kg of gear 260 miles across Alaska in sub-zero temperatures. Not bad for someone who can never remember where they parked the car at the supermarket.

‘We all have obstacles in our lives,’ she says. ‘Mine was epilepsy. My legs serve as my words to inspire others to reach their own achievements.’ Hats off to you, Mrs van Deren – hats off.

To find out more about Diane van Deren and how she did on her Aconcagua climb (which was sponsored by one our partners – The North Face), keep an eye on http://www.neverstopexploring.com/blog/aconcagua-ultra/

GRAB! £600 towards your next adventure

If you’re planning an awesome mountain adventure, we’ve got £600 to put towards it. To win the cash, we want you to tell us all about what you’re aiming to do – submit your story at www.goape.co.uk/adventurebursary to enter the draw. Good luck!