Meet the team
Head On Out is built on one simple mantra: ‘we’d rather be outside’
Every member of the Head On Out team is different, but we all share the same passion for the outdoors. Getting to explore this vast, varied natural playground for a living is a dream come true, but the best part is being able to share it with you, our clients.
When you book a trip with Head On Out, you’re in very safe hands. Every one of our instructors is highly-qualified, first-aid trained and fully insured. With decades of experience between us, we have worked all over the country, as well as abroad, but we’re still endlessly curious about new areas to visit, and keeping up to date with the latest techniques. After all, every day is a school day!
Our core team
Edmund Hastings
Edmund founded Head On Out in 2017, having been a keen mountaineer for as long as he can remember. He holds the highest UK-based summer mountaineering qualification - the Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor award - and is a full member of the Association of Mountain Instructors. Ed is passionate about sharing his knowledge, experience and love for the mountains, and believes strongly that the outdoors should be available and open to everyone.
Having climbed all over the UK and abroad, he is a fan of all things rocky, equally at home on trad, sport, winter and ice climbing, and always dreaming of the next trip.
Through his work with young climbers, he is constantly striving to nurture the next generation of outdoorsmen and women, coaching and teaching at various indoor climbing walls. He is also a course director for the Climbing Wall Instructor pathway.
In the rare moments that he’s not climbing, Ed side-hustles as a professional opera singer!
Ben Brooks
Ben is a climbing coach and coach educator based in Bristol and the South West. Having come to climbing relatively late, it very quickly took over his life and moved rapidly from a passion to a career. Living in the UK where it's generally wet, and being more of a fair-weather climber, the majority of Ben's early climbing experience was in indoor climbing gyms. This led to love of exploring movement and sharing this passion with others. Having a young family and therefore limited time, Ben is most often found climbing indoors or training for the rare times he can get out sport climbing in the South West.
As part of the first cohort for the Mountain Training Performance Coach award Ben is currently focusing on performance coaching and coach education. He runs the BMC FUNdamentals of Climbing courses and is part of the NICAS coach development team via his coaching company - Ben Brooks Coaching. He is also the head coach for Redpoint climbing gym in Bristol.
Ben strives to create a safe environment where climbers can learn movement and technique skills through self-discovery and experimentation. With the coaching philosophy that there is always more to learn, Ben is constantly seeking new information and exploring the latest theories and ideas to become a better coach for his clients.
Jamie Evans
Jamie is a Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor based in Bristol. He started climbing indoors at school then went on to climb in most styles over the past 20+ years, in exciting places around the UK and overseas as far afield as the Himalaya.
Jamie climbs a mix of trad and sport close to home, especially the weird Bristol hybrid routes. He also gets up to Scotland and over to the Alps whenever he can around work and family, now even with family in tow!
With a background of coaching from other walks of life Jamie enjoys building clients’ confidence by managing anxiety and being carefully tailored with feedback.
Jamie loves running courses and workshops for climbers and mountaineers to help them be safer and more confident during their own adventures.
Adam Hill
Adam's life has all been about seeking out adventure. From finding the tallest trees to climb as a kid, to the highest mountains in the world to jump off as a slightly bigger kid, he has continually sought out life-affirming challenges. Having worked in the adventure industry for the past 25 years, first as the pioneer of Himalayan paragliding, establishing companies in Nepal and Bhutan, and then as a Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor, he has spent the last 8 years climbing and mountaineering all around the UK.
As director of Himalayan Frontiers, an international trekking and mountaineering company, Adam has spent years of his life under canvas amongst the world’s largest mountains, climbing, trekking, exploring and leading people on numerous adventures and challenges in some of the world’s largest playgrounds.
As a member of The British Paragliding Team, Adam has represented the UK in both World and European Championships and travelled the globe while on the Paragliding World Cup circuit. Having settled in the South West, he is now found happily climbing and exploring the seas cliffs of Devon and Cornwall.
Sally Lisle
Sally first found her love of the outdoors at 9 years old when a few days feeling fully immersed in the wilderness convinced her that she could do absolutely anything. She has spent the last 20 years working towards making as many other people feel like this as possible. Sally is a highly experienced Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor, Remote Medic and full member of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors running her own company Far Out Pursuits in Snowdonia. She has a first-class degree in Sports Science (with Outdoor Activities) from Bangor University and believes in applying sports science theory in her sessions to make them as meaningful and effective as possible. You can find her articles around the web, such as Playing with Fear on UKClimbing.
When she's not instructing you will find Sally exploring, pushing her climbing limits and generally having fun sharing adventures. Her latest playing has taken her to the Swiss Alps (Piz Palu Traverse — Women's Alpine Adventure Club) and the depths of Mexico, where she led a team putting up a new 350m adventurous sport route called Eterno Optimista.
Justin Nicholas
An MCI holder and a full AMI member, Justin is the founder of Climb South West, and has over 20 years' experience climbing, exploring and working in mountain training. He is passionate about the outdoors, and his enthusiasm for adventure, exploration and challenge continues to drive him through every aspect of his life.
His experience includes work with outdoors centres, managing climbing walls, leading expeditions, programme-managing college courses, training and assessing for Mountain Training England and leading climbing holidays in the UK and Europe. Justin's wider interests include kayaking and running ultra marathons.
Holly Peristiani
Holly found climbing at the ripe old age of 35 and instantly became hooked. After joining the North London Mountaineering Club and becoming their New Members Secretary, she found how much she enjoyed taking people climbing outdoors, teaching them skills to become independent, and exploring the vast quantities of British rock on our doorstep.
After qualifying as a Rock Climbing Instructor she set up her own company Holly Peristiani Climbing, and has since also trained as a Mental Health First Aider. She is particularly focused on working with women and disadvantaged communities facing difficulties accessing outdoor climbing, as well as people affected by mental health issues, and is on the team at the mental health charity Blackdog Outdoors.
Holly’s preferred choice of climbing is anywhere on gritstone she can get a good hand jam, but also loves the thrill of sea cliffs, and endless conversations about the best crag snacks.
Alex Rhodes
Alex cut his teeth from a young age on the limestone crags and exposed sea-cliffs of the South West but now lives up in the Peak District. His enthusiasm for engaging people with the outdoors in a safe and responsible manner stemmed from observations during university years of widespread poor practice, vowing to act upon this to improve club safety and sustainability. Having worked in the outdoor industry since 2017, he continues to enjoy introducing people to climbing, hillwalking and mountaineering and still pinches himself at times this can be classed as a ‘job!’
Coming from a biological sciences background, Alex is particularly in tune with the natural world and loves to share his impressive knowledge about the environment, flora and fauna on days out…And to top things off, you can probably tell from the image he really likes the colour green!
Alex holds the ML(w) and MCI qualifications.
Nick Simons
Nick is passionate about getting people out climbing and passing on the happiness and fulfilment it has brought him over the last thirty years. During that time he's often mentored friends who've shown an interest and, in 2023, he qualified as an RCI so that he could do the same professionally. Based in London for his other working life, Nick lives with the reality that all the good stuff is at least three hours away. It's always worth the trip, though! He loves various kinds of climbing: British trad, Scottish winter, continental sport and, in the last fifteen years, alpinism. He's committed to diversifying access to the outdoors, promoting the mental health benefits of climbing and, as much as possible, reducing his own environmental impact.
Jim Weaver
Jim grew up in Sheffield and started trad climbing on the Peak District gritstone. He’s in his third decade as a rock climber, and he’s been a winter & ice climber for roughly half that time. Being based in London he’s well placed for flights to the French or Italian Alps, Norway & Canada for ice, or for trips down to the south west for soul soaring sea cliff trad & sport climbing. He also loves heading home for the grit, or to North Wales, The Lakes & Scotland.
He’s probably happiest climbing multi-pitch trad on sea cliffs, or hanging from his axes on a frozen waterfall.
He says: "I hope the passion I have for climbing is infectious, and as an instructor I want to share the experience I’ve gained over those years”.
He holds the RCDI qualification.
Carbon offset
Head On Out is proud to support The Gold Standard, a standards and certification body for carbon offset, supporting a range of social and infrastructure projects around the world.
