Never again! Initially I laughed along with everyone else at the start of hike info. I thought it was funny, satire! Little did I know that “I’m not gonna explain or show you which way we are going etc as you won’t remember anyway” “I’m taking you to a waterfall but it’s barely a waterfall, you’ll see” this wasn’t Charlie being funny, it’s truthful. He strode off, younger and fitter members up front with him but the gap widened. No time or allowance for catchup. 4 hours hard hiking with less than 5 min break at which Charlie looked agitated and chomping at the bit to continue. Extremely tired after 3 and half hours I stopped along with a friend to have a sip of water and retrieve a snack from our packs. Charlie came towards us, extremely confrontational asking ‘what our problem was?’! I stated we had stopped to get some sweets out of our packs and have a 2 minute breather . He said he couldn’t see us and it was up to us to make sure we kept up. I stated that I couldn’t physically walk any faster so not sure how I could achieve this. Charlie said that we should not be expecting the faster walkers at the front to wait for us.I told Charlie that every other hiking group I had walked with had always encouraged me to join them and reassured me that they always go with the pace of slowest person in the group. Charlie’s reply was “Where’s that come from? I’ve never heard that”!! I informed him that I hadn’t messaged him privately as I assumed he went along with this same principle especially as he called himself The Mountain coach. His face said it all at this point. He was rude, arrogant and confrontational. He doesn’t have the personality or kind nature to be leading a group. Other hiking group leaders I have met have been kind, considerate, thoughtful and motivating, unfortunately Charlie is none of these things. The difference being, the others do it because of passion and love of outdoors , it would appear Charlie does it for the ££. There were no pleasantries after the walk, checking if people were ok, no interaction later at meal time. I opted out of second day with him and did an amazing hike at my own pace using AllTrails.At the end of the day.. if you’re slower than average and would like to admire scenery/ take photos/smell the roses/ take an occasional break this company probably isn’t for you.
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