Burn The Desk: Welsh 3000s

I'm going to (try and) keep this short and let the pictures do the talking! We didn't get to Pen y Pass until late but blasted up to the summit in 1:30, arriving at 1:30am. Chris had bought a full on airbed because he hasn't got a Thermarest yet and I haven't laughed so much in a long time as when we walked past about 20 people sleeping at the summit and pulled out his airbed and start blowing it up noisily, huffing and puffing for 10 minutes much to the dismay and grumbling of those trying to get some shut eye! We got a few hours kip, it was a very windy night and awoke at 5am. We took photos and got the jetboil on the go and by just after 7am I'd had a cup of tea, a cuppa soup and a packet of pasta and was packed and ready to go. I was a bit gutted that I'd knocked on my mates Forerunner 310XT during the night and wasted a quarter of the battery! We bounced down Snowdon, over Crib y Dsygl and over Crib Goch in no time at all. It was good fun coming down the scree slope and before long we'd descended to the road and was at Nant Peris were my dad was waiting. I changed into shorts and dropped the bivi gear off and carried on with just a hyrdation sack. By this put the sun was getting higher in the sky and it was getting warm! The pull to Elidir Fawr was a long one and Chris was feeling the pull but motored on to make the summit. He doesn't know this but I made a bit of a mistake (he does now) and we didn't need to go up the next summit (Foel Goch) and could of instead took the less steep path to Y Garn! Sorry mate! We dropped down by Llyn y Cwn and stopped were I had run out of water. Chris got half a bagette down his neck which gave him a second wind and we steadily climbed to the top of the Glyders. We over took a bunch of bimblers coming down to the col to Tryfan were we met a couple of guys from the Wrekin Mountaineering Club who kindly offered to refuel us! We made the summit of Tryfan which was much easier than I thought it would be but I guess its not all the way from the road at Ogwen! We dropped down to Ogwen where my dad was waiting again. I got a bit of pasta on the go and he did Chris some dirty spanking gorgeous Pot Noodles :) I tended my feet as I had a blister on my toe. I popped it and got a Compeed on it. I thought this was a bad idea when we set off but it soon settled down. We headed up the path to the cottage and started up Pen yr Ole Wen. My dad said at least it will be getting cooler as we left and those words were ringing in my ears on the trudge up where it seemed the hottest part of the day. We stopped a couple of times in the shade to have a drink and as we reached the shoulder a couple of lads who were also doing it caught us. We had over taken each other a few times since the Glyderau so we decided to walk together for the rest of the route. Once we'd gained the height we made good progress over the last 7 miles. The pull up to Carnedd Llewelyn and the trip out to Yr Elen being the hardest bits. The last three are very simple and I was on the summit of Foel Gras just before 9pm. It took us just under 14 hours, I wanted to do it in under 10 hours which I think I could manage but given the heat of the day and the fact this was Chris's first endurance type event I was happy. It was certainly something of a baptism of fire to the whole endurance thing for Chris and he did awesome to romp through the pain. We dropped down into the col between Foel Fras and Drum to Llyn Anafon and down the track for a couple of miles where I was finally pleased to see the car. When I got to the bottom my old man was nowhere to be seen and after calling for a while he hadn't appeared and I was worried. I then heard him shout back from over a ridge where he'd gone to get a signal for the phone and take some pics of the sunset. Chris was off to sleep not long after we set off, I remembered my dad had a bottle of ale in the car so at Bethesda I got him to stop and I cracked it open. 15 min after finishing the bottle and I was out like a light and didn't wake until Llangollen. We got home at 2am and my dad was had to be up at 4am for work. What a legend, a massive thanks to him as without all the water we'd of been up the creek! Big well done to Chris for his first, very successful long distance event! I've been thinking about a double crossing as well as another attempt for sub 10 hours. Maybe not this weekend though :)

Keep it short eh? ;)