Alfie’s Welsh 3000s Mountain Challenge

Up until now now, I’ve always written my own blog entries. However, sharing this attempt at the Welsh 3000s (or 15 Peaks) with Alfie, my son, was both unusual and special. So I’m going to let you hear about our experience from his perspective:

Adam & Eve
Looking weary between Adam & Eve at the top of Tryfan

I don’t know what you already know about the fifteen peaks (or think you know) but believe me when I say, “it’s bloomin’ hard!”

Originally I was planning on doing something like sailing the English channel to raise money for a trip to Morocco I’m doing next year with a group from school. But after doing some research I realised that that would take way too much organising with the channel being so busy with ships. It was then that Dad suggested the fifteen peaks (something I think he’s now regretting). It sounded like a great idea – I’ve always enjoyed climbing mountains and fifteen in one day sounded like a nice challenge. It wasn’t until I was lying awake in the tent the night before we started that it hit me what I was about to attempt.

We started walking at 3:45 on the Pyg Track going up towards Crib Goch, it was still dark. We summited Crib Goch (1/15) at 05:10 (this is when our 24hrs officially began) by which time we had seen the sun rise.

After rather a long scramble – Garnedd Ugain (2/15) at 06:20

After a relatively short uphill walk – Snowdon (3/15) at 06:45

We then walked down along the Snowdon Railway until we reached the road where we met our support vehicle (my Grandparents’ car) at 08:45 to have a ration pack breakfast. Thus ended “Mountain Day One”. Forty five minutes later we started the (very) long slog up electric mountain.

After even more slogging – Elidir Fowr (4/15) at 11:30

After a long walk around the horseshoe  – Y Garn (5/15) at 13:00

After a walk down the hillside, a splash in a lake and scrambling up a scree slope – Glyder Fawr (6/15) at 14:25

After a good stiff march along the ridge – Glyder Fach (7/15) at 15:25

After descending another scree slope, dropping our bags and a good fun scramble – Tryfan (8/15) at 16:50

We then scrambled back down the south ridge of Tryfan, the way we had come, to our bags before heading towards the main road, not forgetting to remove our boots and dangle our legs in a lake for ten minutes. By which time I was sunburnt and we were both dehydrated having run out of water in the hot sun. On returning to the car, we had another well needed ration pack meal of lamb hotpot and loaded up both ourselves and our bottles with water and isotonic drinks. Thus ended “Mountain Day Two”.

We started up Pen Yr Ole Wen after a full hour’s resting with full bottles only to have a good guzzle from a little waterfall half an hour later.

Then after a fairly easy walk and a bit of a scramble – Pen Yr Ole Wen (9/15) at 21:15

This is about when the cloud started to fall, shortly followed by dusk. This is also about the time when I fell into a bit of a stupor – fuelled mainly by RedBull. So I don’t really remember  much of the rest. Just that we trudged for over seven and a half hours with head-torch visibility of less than two meters. Oh, and I also remember that our short summit rests would get shorter and shorter as our legs would seize up quicker and quicker whenever we stopped.

Rock Collection
The 15 rocks collected from the 15 summits

Carnedd Dafydd (10/15) at 21:50

Carnedd Llewelyn (11/15) at 23:20

Yr Ellen (12/15) at 23:55

Foel Grach (13/15) at 01:25

Garnedd Uchaf (14/15) at 02:05

Foel Fras (15/15!) at 02:45    –    Giving us a total challenge time of 21 hours and 35 minutes.

 

Foel Fras
Almost asleep at Foel Fras

 

It was only after the final summit that I started to feel tired, which was probably because I thought it was over – it wasn’t. I think the next two hours were the longest two hours of my life so far. However, I’m going to skip to the end of those two hours (because they were very boring walking in the dark for so long, seeing so little), to when we arrived at the RV two hours before the agreed pick up time. The next two hours were probably the quickest two hours of my life so far. I fell asleep as soon as my toes touched the bottom of my bivi-bag (well, the almost bottom, I’m not quite tall enough to reach the bottom).

 

07:00 – Woken up with almost cramp (it was very close) and driven to the B&B my grandparents had used.

10:00 – Woken up in B&B, had a shower, was almost sick.

11:00 – Woke up in Llanberis outside “Petes’ Eats” to have breakfast (good breakfast).

14:00 – Woke up in driveway at home, went inside.

18:00 – Woke up on sofa, ate tea, went to bed.

Next day – Woke up, lay on sofa, watched TV and slept. Can’t walk.

Day after – Woke up, sat on sofa, watched TV. Can just about hobble.

Day after that – Able to almost walk. Starting to feel almost human.

 

One thought on “Alfie’s Welsh 3000s Mountain Challenge”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *