The leaders of the A-team crossing the damp rocks of Crib-y-Ddysgl towards Crib Goch in the cloud below. Note the false ridge heading down left towards The Parsons Nose, no way down there without a long rope and a good anchor. Picture about 4.30am.
A number of weeks back a few of the newer members of the club decided they wanted to take on the Welsh 3000’s challenge. For those that don’t know, this challenge involves scaling the 15 mountains over 3000 feet in less than 24 hours on foot.
The general way to do this challenge is to camp on Snowdon the night before, then after crossing the infamous Crib Goch ridge descend to the Llanberis pass to meet a support vehicle to take the camping equipment and provide much needed food and drink. After a short stop you climb Elidir Fawr and continue along the Glyder’s before descending to Ogwen via Tryfan to yet again meet the support car. Finally you climb Pen yr Ole Wen into the Carneddau range. You can read more here. Joe Sugden took charge of planning and we picked the weekend closest to the summer solstice and full moon to ensure the most amount of daylight.
With the help of John Sugden (Joe’s Father) and Rich Sealey (who had to be prised away from his hut duties stoking the fire) we deposited the nine brave souls undertaking the challenge at the bottom of the P-y-G track under a pall of grey sky and low cloud at 7.20pm on Friday evening.
After a damp and breezy bivi (miserable for some) they left the summit of Snowdon at 4:05am on Saturday!
Of the nine who started, one dropped out at Nant-Peris and two dropped out at Ogwen, leaving six to finish. The best time was 13.42 hrs and the last one took almost 18 hrs, pretty good considering he had done little or no training.
The weather was reasonable with light winds and a lot of cloud on the tops. The navigation was helped by the fact that most of the route was marked out for 160 Vegan runners, some of who were hoping to complete a longer route in seven or eight hours!
Thanks to Liam who waited and looked after a slow companion, unfortunately they arrived at Ogwen late in the day and this jeopardised his chances of finishing in daylight.
Commiserations to those that didn’t finish, there’s always next year.
Thanks to Bridget and Joe for some of the pictures, to Rich Sealey for helping out Friday evening and very many thanks to John Sugden for coming up and helping to ferry participants around North Wales, and keeping the timing records, much appreciated by all (especially me). Also thanks to Stan for his company and tea making.
All involved donated towards my petrol, and I am pleased to report that the extra put into the kitty totalled £70 which will be donated to Mountain Rescue. NameTime leaving SnowdenTime Arriving/Leaving Nant PerisTime Arriving/Leaving OgwenTime Finishing Foel FrasTime start to finish Bridget Ripley04050735/07501320/1345174713h42m Joe Sugden04050736/08211447/1524212217h17m Gavin Phillips04050735/08211446/1524212217h17m Conner Agnew04050740/08211513/1546212217h17m Dan Jackson04050754/08221513/1546212217h17m Rob Stewart04050758/08211543/1557214017h35m Liam Bell04050737/08211730 (finished) Kay Armitage04050759/08221755 (finished) Dave Etchells04050808 (finished)
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