Hand and faces

Mountain Leader Assessment day 3, exped day 1.
Poor visability navigation.
Judgement calls.

Over the course of 5days we need to assess the candidates ability to navigate in poor visibility, and under an element of stress. Most commonly this is done by night time navigation, but equally some nights are actually quite easy. But sometimes just occasionally, conditions are so poor that they're excellent....

Today the forecast was for grim till evening and then a bright night. We set out with solid cloud and Mizzle from 400m up right from the start, and it stayed that way nearly till the end. Visibility was never more than 20m and the candidates had to be focused, precise and using complex strategies. We went to a selection of obtuse contour features and a few places that aren't really there. Mixed in with very rough terrain on the back of Crinkle Crags it was as tough as days come.
Then we came to the Bad Step.
In a roundabout way I'd led the day to this point as we really needed a second look at one of the group's judgement and understanding, the Leader part of the award, I needed to know they could factor in dynamics and reason through consequences.
The step would be atrocious, wet, slimy, the top just 15ft away yet not visible, a group with expedition packs on their backs. We had a tentative "no" and when I raised my eyebrows an "OK" - not the answer I wanted to hear. Fortunately some gentle questioning brought us back to a change of plan.
But then...
A choice not to take the obvious huge path west, but to follow a sheep trod out onto the treacherous East face, 60° wet, loose, grass and dripping rock over seemingly bottomless voids swirling in the cloud.
Half the group stopped in aware horror, one gamely followed our 'leader' trying to be supportive.
I'd seen enough and had to intervene, putting myself between them and the drop I brought them back to safe ground, à slip would have been the last of any of us.
Clearly it's not great when the Assessor has to intervene. I want the candidates to succeed, but I've a duty of care to maintain, and it's fair to say we were a sombre bunch that made our way down to camp.
7hrs in the cloud, 10 hours on the hill, 1 horrendous decision.
Tomorrow we go again.

In extras à couple more of the ambiance and one of the view as the skies cleared as we dropped down to Red Tarn at the end of the day.