Introducing Rhys.

For the latest in our series introducing members of the Woodlore Outdoor Team, we sat down with Rhys to talk about growing up outdoors, rediscovering bushcraft as an adult, his journey from Woodlore participant to Outdoor Team member, and why, after all these years, building a good den still has its appeal.

Rhys is now in his second year with the team. He assisted on one course during his first year and has been able to take on several more this year, gradually becoming more familiar with the Woodlore training site and everything that needs to happen behind the scenes. His connection with Woodlore, however, goes back much further.

“I was aware of Ray and Woodlore from probably the mid-90s, when I started getting interested in it and it was on TV. Where I grew up, there were woods very close to where I lived, so my friends and I would spend lots of time out there, mucking about and building dens.”

There was already an element of learning alongside the childhood adventures.

“I remember getting a copy of one of Ray’s early books. We’d take that up into the woods and practice building the same kind of shelters.”

Growing Up in the Wye Valley

Those woods were in the Wye Valley, close to Tintern. It is a landscape shaped by the River Wye, with steep-sided sections of valley, commercial forestry and areas of ancient woodland around Offa’s Dyke.

For a child interested in being outdoors, there was plenty to explore. The interest stayed with Rhys, although the way he spent his outdoor time changed as he grew older.

“When I moved away from my family home, I drifted more into hill walking. I lived near Cardiff, so the Brecon Beacons were quite close. My outdoor time was spent more hill walking and cycling.”

Cycling remains an important part of life outdoors for Rhys. He and his wife Cath have spent plenty of time cycle touring, sometimes finding themselves travelling through a place that feels oddly familiar before an old photograph provides the answer as to when they were last there.

But over the last decade, the woodland interests of his childhood have increasingly found their way back in.

“It’s come back more towards bushcraft, making dens and the nature side of things.”

One part of that return has been rediscovering skills that had become a little rusty over the years, particularly nature identification.

“I think I was quite good at that when I was younger, and then moving into hill walking I forgot lots of it. Now I’m working quite hard to try and get that back. It’s been quite nice to have a good reason to get back into that, dust off some of my old books and buy some new ones.”

For Rhys, identification is also a reminder that outdoor knowledge needs to be practiced rather than simply read about.

“You can use your books to some extent, but then you actually have to get out there because things never look quite the same as they do on paper. It might be a different season. If I’m not out there doing it, it gets a bit rusty.”

Finding Woodlore

Although Rhys had known of Ray and Woodlore since the 1990s, many years passed before he finally attended a course himself. The nudge came courtesy of his wife Cath, who gave him a Woodlore carving course as a gift.

It proved to be the beginning rather than a one-off experience.

Since then Rhys has worked his way through an extensive range of Woodlore courses, from Introductory and Fundamentals through Camp Craft, Tracking and Journeyman, as well as travelling overseas for Arctic Winter Bushcraft and Heroes of Telemark. At the time of our conversation, a canoeing trip with Cath was also still to come.

It is an unusually broad experience of Woodlore from the participant’s side, and one that now gives Rhys an interesting perspective as a member of the Outdoor Team.

“I think having done lots of them is quite helpful when you’re doing the assistant stuff. You’ve got a good idea of what’s coming up, and even if you haven’t been on the assistant side before, for me it’s quite fresh what the students and clients will be going through, because it’s very recently that I went through exactly the same.”

The courses have also left their mark on the way he experiences an ordinary day outdoors. Tracking, for example, has made it rather difficult simply to walk down a path without looking for signs on the ground.

“Now I can’t walk along a path like this without staring at the floor.”

Seeing the Other Side

That change from participant to Outdoor Team member is particularly noticeable at the Woodlore training site at Eridge. Rhys had already spent time there on courses, but arriving as part of the team is a rather different experience.

“I’d been there several times on the courses that I’ve been on, but obviously being there on the team side is different because you’re bringing vehicles in and setting things up. Normally, if you arrive as a client, things are set up for you.”

Woodlore’s leave no trace approach means the site can also look remarkably different before a course is established.

“Without all of the tarps and things set up, it doesn’t look the same. It does take a while, and you’re also learning the exits and entrances and things like that.”

Even the time of year can alter the experience. A bivouac site that has not yet been used that season may require a little more work to reach and establish, but can also have more natural material available nearby. Later in the year, after several groups have passed through, the same place presents a different set of considerations.

For someone who once arrived to find camp waiting, there is now a much clearer view of all the work that takes place before the first participant walks in.

From Participant to Outdoor Team

So how did someone who had become a regular Woodlore participant find himself on the other side of the course?

During his time as a client, Rhys had noticed that many of Woodlore’s assistants and instructors had followed a similar route, attending courses themselves before progressing into the team. After completing several courses, he decided to submit his CV.

“I thought it would be a brilliant opportunity to work with the team because every course I’d been on, I’d been super impressed with the quality of the instructors and the assistants, and the courses themselves, the structure of the courses.”

His CV remained on file while Rhys continued taking courses and gaining further experience. When Woodlore was preparing to recruit again, he was asked whether he wanted to remain under consideration and whether he had anything to add.

The answer to both questions was yes.

Then came an invitation to the selection weekend.

Rhys describes it simply as “quite an experience”. Some parts were difficult and reminded him a little of Journeyman. Strangely enough, having successfully completed it, he now admits that he would quite like another go.

As for exactly what happens during selection, that will remain between Rhys, Woodlore and the trees.

“I enjoyed it, got through it, and then got the call saying, ‘We’d like to invite you to assist on a couple of courses.’ And here I am.”

Now he is keen to become involved wherever he can, to be useful and to continue developing his own knowledge along the way.

“I’m getting a lot from it, and I think that’s why everyone on the team is involved, because everyone gets a lot from it. Everyone’s always learning, everyone’s enthusiastic.”

Learning from the Team

That culture of continued learning is something Rhys returned to several times during our conversation. Joining the Outdoor Team has not meant reaching a point where there is nothing left to learn. Instead, it has placed him among people who are continually adding to their own experience.

What particularly struck him, first as a participant and now as a newer member of the team, is the way that knowledge is carried.

“My experience with the instructors on Woodlore is that they all carry their knowledge very lightly, in the sense that they don’t have big egos. They’re receptive to other people and they’re interested in trying things different ways.”

At the same time, that openness does not mean losing sight of methods that have been developed and tested through experience.

“They can also say, ‘Actually, no, this is the way we’re going to do it today.’ The skills that are being taught by Woodlore are tried and tested.”

For Rhys, the combination of experience, curiosity and generosity is an important part of the atmosphere within the team.

“The lack of ego is quite remarkable, and very generous. Everyone has been very generous with their help. They don’t expect you to know everything, and there are no stupid questions, which is really nice.”

That does not mean that expectations are low. Rhys is equally clear that being part of the team can be demanding, but sees that as part of its value.

“They are demanding, and that’s one of the enjoyable bits of it. You know you’re working hard, but they’re ensuring that the effort you’re putting in is going in the right direction rather than working hard and getting it all wrong.”

“It’s a very positive environment to be in.”

Sharing the Outdoors

Rhys also brings considerable experience of helping other people develop confidence outdoors through his long involvement with Scouting.

He was a Cub when he was young and briefly joined Scouts before his local group disbanded. After a long break, he returned to Scouting around 15 years ago, at roughly the same time that bushcraft was becoming a bigger part of his outdoor life again.

He volunteered with a local Explorer unit, working with young people aged 14 to 18.

“I prefer working with the older children because I think you can do more adventurous things with them. They’re also there because they want to be there.”

Running an Explorer unit means weekly meetings, but Rhys’s involvement has extended well beyond them. He has supported international Explorer Belt expeditions, where groups of young people undertake a ten-day journey in another country, completing challenges and working around an overall theme that they later present when they return home.

One of those expeditions took him to Norway, close to the area he would later revisit on Woodlore’s Heroes of Telemark expedition. Another took him to the Czech Republic, near the historic town of Český Krumlov.

There have also been much larger Scouting events. At an All Wales camp on the Royal Welsh Showground, attended by around a thousand young people, Rhys took responsibility for an adventure zone.

The activities included bushcraft, climbing, a mobile caving system, rafting, mountain rescue, the fire service and crate stacking.

“That was a lot of fun.”

Alongside his practical work with Explorers, Rhys has also taken on a trustee role with Scouts Cymru, giving him another perspective on an organization that has been a significant part of his outdoor life.

It also means that although he may be one of the newer faces on the Woodlore Outdoor Team, helping people learn and gain confidence through outdoor experiences is certainly not new territory.

Back in the Woods

Away from Woodlore and Scouting, Rhys’s own outdoor life remains varied. Hill walking and cycle touring still sit alongside the woodland interests that first captured his imagination as a child.

There is something rather fitting about the fact that, after all those years and all those different outdoor experiences, building dens still gets a mention.

The setting and skills may have developed considerably since the days of heading into the woods with friends and one of Ray’s books, but the enjoyment of being outside, trying things and learning through doing has remained remarkably consistent.

And there is still plenty left on the list. At the time we spoke, Rhys had more Woodlore experiences ahead of him and was already thinking about skills and courses he would like to revisit in the future.

For now, though, there was one final important question to settle.

A Little Luxury

We finished with the question that has now become something of a tradition in our Outdoor Team conversations: when you’re spending time outdoors, what little luxury earns its place in your kit?

The brew kit, it should be noted, was already leading the unofficial Woodlore poll, so Rhys was asked to choose something else.

His answer was dark chocolate.

“Probably some really good dark chocolate. I don’t really like milk chocolate, but something really punchy that you don’t need much of, and that gives you a good sugar hit as well.”

Around 75 to 80 per cent cocoa is the preferred territory. There is a practical reason for carrying it as well as simply enjoying it.

“Sometimes, if you spend a lot of time outdoors, you are going to be cold, you’re going to be wet and you’re going to be hungry. To have a little square of something tucked away gives you a bit of a morale boost.”

Rhys even has a particular fondness for chocolate sold in a small tin, partly because the container remains useful once its original contents have disappeared. A good little tin, after all, can always find another job in an outdoor kit.

So far, the unofficial Woodlore Outdoor Team luxury list includes a brew kit, a good book and now strong dark chocolate.

We may need a bigger rucksack.