From a first mountain in Wales to the Icelandic interior, small grants that funded school pupils' first real expeditions away from home.
Every expedition is somebody's first. A primary school year group's first mountain, a sixth former's first trip abroad without their parents, a school's first attempt at an event it's never entered before. What connects the projects below isn't the scale of the trip: it's that a small grant was the difference between a school being able to offer the experience at all, and having to leave certain pupils behind.
The first mountain
Somerset Bridge Primary School runs an annual trip for its year 4 pupils: two days learning to pitch a tent, cook proper camp food, and climb their first mountain in Wales. Costs per pupil are kept as low as the school can manage, but equipment is where the budget usually runs out. A Foundation grant let the school take its full year group rather than the usual 40 to 45, and buy kit pupils could borrow year on year. All 61 children who went made it to the summit. As course leader Shane put it, "the confidence this experience gives them enriches their lives and teaches them they can do it and anything is possible."
Further west on Dartmoor, the Ten Tors Challenge does something similar for older pupils: a navigation and endurance event that turns into a year-round commitment for the schools that take it seriously. Sheldon School had entered for four years running when a Foundation grant helped a staff member complete the South West Mountain and Moorland Leader qualification, letting the school field more teams and take more students. Antony Primary School, entering the Junior Ten Tors for the first time, used a grant simply to fund the training that gets a brand-new team off the ground: navigating the moors as a team, camping overnight, and finishing what they started.
Further afield
For some pupils, Ten Tors is the training ground for something bigger. A group from Coombe Dean School, all veterans of the 35-mile Ten Tors route and several tackling the 45-mile course, spent the following year self-funding and preparing for what's believed to be the first school expedition on Italy's Alta Via 1. A Foundation grant helped a group that was already funding the trip through part-time jobs get there.
At St Bernard's Catholic High School in Cumbria, a group of 13 pupils aged 14 to 16 spent two years planning a very different first: a trek through Morocco's High Atlas mountains to summit Jbel Toubkal, followed by a community project improving facilities at a school in Goulmima. It was the third such expedition the school had run, each one shaped by the pupils taking part. A Foundation grant went toward the transport costs of getting there.
De Warenne Academy, in one of Yorkshire's more deprived catchments, ran its first ever overseas expedition to Iceland's Laugavegur trail: five days self-sufficient at national park campsites, plus white water rafting and a stop in Reykjavik. Expedition leader Cat wanted the trip to show students that leaving their own area was possible: "I believe that a trip like this could be an opportunity of a lifetime for our students." The Foundation helped fund better kit and clothing for the crossing.
Into the wild
Some expeditions are built around a badge rather than a border. Twelve pupils from Penicuik High School spent a year working toward the John Muir Award: bushcraft and navigation days on their local Penicuik Estate, then a self-supported week walking and camping in the Cairngorms, a wilderness area none of them had visited before. The Foundation supplied camp food for the trip, so pupils stayed fed and focused rather than counting the cost of every meal.
Further north again, three students from Scotland's School of Adventure Studies planned an international expedition of their own devising: sea kayaking the west coast of Iceland from Stykkishólmur to Grundarfjörður, camping on the shoreline and carrying everything in and out to leave no trace. Their aim was as much environmental as physical, recording human impact on a remote coastline to present to community groups and young paddlers back home. The Foundation provided two stoves so the team could cook without adding to their footprint.
None of these were the biggest trips in the world. But for the pupils on them, most were the furthest from home, the first mountain, or the first time anyone had trusted them with an expedition of their own.
The Alpkit Foundation supports projects that enable people to overcome the obstacles preventing them from Going Nice Places and Doing Good Things. Find out how to apply.