1978 - 2010. Celebrating over 30 years of quality guiding and instruction...
including the best and most effective land navigation training available.
Kevin Walker Mountain Activities is a small, long established outdoor training business which has been running navigation courses in the Welsh mountains since 1978. Our main base is at Crickhowell in the Brecon Beacons. London is less than 3 hours away, Birmingham just over 90 minutes. Indeed, we are only ten minutes away from a dual-carriageway link to both the M4 and M5 corridors, so it is really easy to reach us. Despite this, the hills here are relatively uncrowded, and many first-time visitors are amazed by the wealth of wilderness. The nature of the terrain makes the whole area ideal for learning navigation, and we make particularly memorable use of several large tracts of wonderfully wild, featureless moorland.
We are convinced that the success and effectiveness of our navigation courses is due to the friendly professionalism of our team, the quality of our training, and the individual attention made possible by very small groups - on our open navigation courses, we never work with more than 4 clients per instructor, often with less.
We also offer personal tuition, 1:1 coaching and guiding throughout Wales and the rest of the British Isles, not just in navigation techniques, but in a wide range of other mountaincraft skills as well.
In overall charge is Kevin Walker, a highly experienced mountain addict who has been running navigation and mountain skills courses for over 30 years. Well known in the business, Kevin ran Mountain Leader training courses for several years, and has written many books including Mountain Navigation Techniques (widely regarded as the standard work), and Learn Rock Climbing in a Weekend (published worldwide). Recent books include The Essential Hillwalkers Guide, published to critical acclaim in 2002, and Navigation - Finding Your Way on Mountain & Moorland, published by Frances Lincoln in 2007. His latest book, Undiscovered Wales, was published by Frances Lincoln (publishers of the Wainwright Guides) in March 2010. He also writes and publishes guidebooks under the banner Heritage Guides, and occasionally writes for the outdoor press.
Although most navigation courses are led by Kevin, he also uses the services of a small team of instructors. This team has been built up slowly over the years, individuals being chosen not only for their technical expertise, but also for their professionalism and friendly approach. You will find their enthusiasm infectious! Needless to say, all possess the relevant National Governing Body qualifications.
Whether you are one of our many regular clients or are considering joining us for the first time, we are sure you will find something to whet your appetite! You can learn about mountain and moorland navigation, map reading, map interpretation, and compass work, hone existing skills and learn some new ones on our popular range of navigation courses. If you decide you want to take things further, you can join us for personal tuition or 1:1 coaching, and come hillwalking and mountaineering with people who really know the mountains of Wales. And if you're feeling particularly curious about pushing the vertical limits, you can even try your hand at rock scrambling and rock climbing, polish existing skills and learn new techniques.
If, having browsed this site, you have any queries, please feel free to get in touch. And if you contact us by telephone and get the dreaded answerphone, please don't hang up! Just leave your name and your daytime and evening telephone numbers, and Kevin will get back to you personally as soon as he can.