The Upland Manager
You will be welcomed on each of our Upland Escapes by your Upland Manager. As well as offering assistance during your stay, they will do everything possible to ensure you get maximum enjoyment from your holiday, including:
- Share their detailed personal knowledge of the local area and all the walks offered
- Help you choose the walks most suited to you
- Give you valuable up-to-the-minute advice
- Suggest local events that you may wish to attend
- Provide weather forecasts
- Make restaurant reservations for you
- Provide you daily with a delicious packed-lunch
- Organise an optional walk 3 days a week, sharing their local knowledge, perhaps to reach a less accessible area, to discover one of the area’s hidden secrets, or conquer a local peak.
- Remain contactable 24-hours a day in case of emergency.
All our Upland Managers are specially trained by Upland Escapes, hold a Mountain First Aid certificate, and will be based close to your accommodation.
When choosing our Upland Managers we look for a range of qualities: knowledge of an area, upland walking experience, culinary expertise, fluency in a local language, organisational capability and – crucially – friendliness! Our Managers undergo a rigorous training course to ensure that they exceed our requirements in every area. This includes an intensive two day/one night mountain leadership session, tailor-made for us by an experienced and fully qualified Mountain Leader, as well as a further two days of HSE certified Mountain First Aid Training, by Adventure First Aid.
Upland Encounters
What is an Upland Encounter? It is not a pre-arranged event, but, as the word “encounter” suggests, an impromptu experience dictated by the seasons, local activities, and your preferences. The common factor is our Upland Manager, without whose local knowledge and language skills these experiences would not be possible. For example, they may invite you to join them in gathering wild greens with a local villager, or to make fresh pasta at a neighbour’s kitchen table. They may hear that a local farmer is making cheese that day and wonder if you’d like to observe the process, or that another local villager has a batch of home-brewed liqueur or schnapps ready for tasting! Depending on your interests, they may ask if you’d like to benefit from their translation skills while taking a look around a tiny private museum or wine-cellar, or to meet a local expert in medicinal mountain plants, or visit an animal sanctuary breeding otters or wolves for reintroduction into the wild.
