John Diplock
John was a lead climber in two major Himalayan first ascents and has led many trekking groups in many areas of the world. These included expeditions to Pakistan, Greenland, Alaska and of course the Himalayas.

John is a respected climber and instructor within the south west. He enjoys canoeing, back-packing and has a passion for the moors and wild places of this world.

Although John has more “office duties” now, he can still be seen out and about running our SPA and WGL courses as well as our overseas trips.

Email: john@spirit-of-adventure.com

Sandy Simpson
Sandy had a very successful career in the Royal Navy for 26 years before opting for a life-style change. Sandy has retired from full-time involvement but is still providing moral support.

Both John and Sandy have travelled extensively and have been members of some of the big mountain expeditions of the 80’s and 90’s. 

Steve Lang

Steve has been our Chief Instructor since 2004. He makes sure all our courses and adventures are correctly staffed and has the unenviable job of equipment logistics. His ‘operations board’ artistic skills are renowned and much relied upon!

Steve leads many of our Princes Trust groups and is a cousre director for our WGL.  He works with groups both here in the UK and overseas.

Steve also has a real passion for adventure travel and has been to such locations as Greenland, Pakistan, Nepal, Peru, Sweden, Finland and China to name but a few.

Email: steve@spirit-of-adventure.com

Martin Hibbs
Martin moved to Dartmoor in 1999 and is Spirit’s trusted and enthusiastic office manager. Often known to draw on his skills learnt from his school days as ‘Head Boy’! Martin is also a keen local school ‘head of governors’ role and has two very active and happy children. He has just hit his mid-life crisis and taken up running marathons!

Martin is normally in the office between 8am and 4pm each day.

Email: martin@spirit-of-adventure.com

Mark Reeves
Mark is the Operations Manager for Young Spirit. 

Mark runs his own company ‘Adventure Challenge’ and with John has formed ‘Young Spirit’, a schools project aimed at educating our younger clients on the skills and rewards of outdoor forest, river and moorland adventures.

More information about Young Spirit

Email: info@youngspirit.co.uk

Sam Smerdon
Sam is a full time instructor and our very own Land Rover expert! Sam is in charge of our summer holiday family climbing programme and very involved with the ‘Young Spirit’ programme.

He is also in charge of the safe storage for all the Spirit kit and the resulting logistics nightmare! He is a regular contributor to the Spirit of Adventure blog if you want to read Sam’s wise words.

Email: sam@spirit-of-adventure.com