YOUNGSTERS at a North Yorkshire school enjoyed an action-packed camping trip to the French Alps.

Four members of staff from Terrington Hall School, near York, took a party of 13-year-old pupils on a week’s mountain climbing, whitewater rafting and hydrospeeding.

The Year 8 pupils embarked on a two-day alpine ascent taking in an overnight mountain refuge stop 2200m above sea level.

This was followed by a day’s whitewater rafting and hydrospeeding down a turbulent 6km stretch of the Durance river negotiating a number of rapids along the way.

The highlight of the pupils’ trip was climbing along the Via Ferrata, at la Motte de Caire. The Via Ferrata was used by the French Resistance during the Second World War as a means of evading the occupying forces. It involves a dramatic climb along precipitous – sometimes overhanging – rock faces, using giant steel cables and a network of steel rungs hammered into the mountainside for foot and handholds.

One section of the route, Le Pont de Nepalese, includes a 30m rope bridge suspended above a 400ft gorge, and another, La Passerelle, a 20m tightrope bridge. Both these stretches were negotiated by the pupils.