15 Peaks

Day 1

Snow in May what ever next.

I'm out with Carl & Dave doing the 15 Peaks over 3 days.

3 Peaks Challenge

We've just run our first 3 peaks of the season had the best weather you could wish for.

Once we had loaded up our supplies we headed off from Snowdonia for the long drive to Fort William stopping off in Glen Coe to enjoy the stunning Scottish Highlands and dinner. With an early 05.00am start on Ben Nevis we made the long climb up the highest mountain in the U.K. The last 200mts of the climb was snow covered and with clear blue skies the views over the highlands was breath taking.

Once on the Summit we had an extra reward as Glenfiddich Whiskey were giving out free samples along with a bagpipe player which was awesome.

After a short break on the summit it was time to return to Glen Nevis jump on our bus and head for Scafell in the Lake District.
We would be climbing Scafell in the dark, were navigation can be tough at times.

We made good time up Scafell, No Whiskey this time just a cold northerly wind to greet us, So a quick photo shoot and down once again to our bus.
Once on the bus everyone was flat out asleep in no time, I must admit our little mobile home was beginning for smell a little fresh.

We arrived at Snowdon at first light feeling pretty tired with very little sleep and aching bones we sorted our kit and started are final summit.

Some of the team wer e in poor shape due to bad knees and had to miss out the final summit.

It was a little strange to be without our full team on our final climb.

We made Snowdon summit in good time and our total time for the 3 peaks was 28.5hrs.

After a celebration hot chocolate on the summit we slowly made our way down the Miners track enjoying the heat of the sun and stunning views of the Snowdon Masiff.

We meet up with the rest of team back at the Vagabond Hostel, then after a hot shower went out for a little celebration drink.

It was incredible weekend and everyone pushed themselves to the limit.

We had the most amazing conditions and it was a great pleasure to do such a tough challenge with such a determined group of people.

15 Peaks (knees up)

May Bank Holiday was our first 15 peaks of the season and thankfully we had fairly good weather through out the odd hail storm but generally clear skies and great views.

Day 1 - We started our challenge from the Northern end of the Carneddau after a 2hr climb we reached the summit of our first Welsh 3000'er. Not bad timing as I think there were a few hangovers in the team.
We had a mixed day of sunshine & hail a bit strange in May really, but we also had some great views over Snowdonia and could even see the Irish coast line at times.

Sue & Steve were really struggling by the end of the day with bad knees so much so it took us about 2.5hrs to descend from our final Peak of the day, Sue was being a complete legend as it was pretty clear she was in a great deal of pain but battled on down with out any fuss.

Day 2 - S tarts off straight up the North Ridge of Tryfan and awesome Grade 1 Scramble and our training ground for Crib Coch on the final day. No hangovers today just very sore legs.We made great time to the summit enjoying some challenging scrambling onroute. Our next summit awaited as we made our way up the loose scree to Glyder Fach then onto Glyder Fawr.

At this point our other Sue had run out of steam, we had a regroup discussed a plan of action, Myself & Dave assisted Sue off the mountain as she was totally exhausted, Bryn & Emma then continued on to finish all the remaining summits for the day not to be beat by this tough challenge.

Bryn & Emma finally finished at 20.30 we headed straight for a beer and some dinner, Pie & Chips all round.

Day 3 - Our Final day and we were now down to 3 of us to finish off the route.

We awoke early morning, all very excited as today we were doing the Snowdon Horseshoe an awesome high level route around the Snowdon Massif, only to look out the window to see Snowdon totally white, I couldn't believe my eyes snow in May.
After a team meeting we decided we would start the route as assess the conditions as the day went. We also had another injury as Emma's knee was in pretty bad shape. You would never believe you could have so many bad knees in one group.

Any how we decided to give it our best shot as the mountains were looking like they just had to be climbed with a fresh covering of snow and now blue skies.

Unfortunately Emma's knee was giving her so much pain we had to retreat and call it a day.

We made a plan to return and complete the Snowdon Horseshoe later in the year when everyone's knees were in working order.
It's was a great weekend, i'm already looking forward to catching up having a beer and finish off what we started.

I've now got 3 days to recharge the batteries before the 3 Peaks this weekend.

I hope everyone has good knees.