Well…. We have attempted the welsh 3000’s and unfortunately were beaten by the conditions, much to our disappointment.

We set out at 6:00am on Saturday in very poor visibility, heavy winds and rain.  This was to provide us with a much more difficult challenge than we had ever expected.  The first slog was a hard one which took 2.5 hours to reach the 1^st summit.  By this point we were already cold and wet through to our base layers.  With the weather conditions being so bad and getting worse, we were unable to see anything more than 50ft in front of us which meant we were walking blind and couldn’t see any of the sights we hoped for.  We reached peaks 2, 3, 4 and 5 within the next 3 hours and then unfortunately due to the conditions we took a wrong turn and managed to go off track.  Our guides experience and compass skills managed to get us back on track and we managed to complete the first 7 peaks by 13:30 which was behind schedule.  To try and make back some time, we decided to attempt the decent of a different mountain than planned, which meant we had to tackle the 3200ft drop of an extremely exposed, wet and steep mountain face which put us well beyond our comfort zones and into a battle against fear rather than conditions without any kind of harness.  After some hairy moments we managed to complete the decent in what was a gruelling 2.5 hours.  The decision then was to abort and not attempt the 4 remaining peaks, as it was too dangerous, we were fatigued and time was against us.

Sunday morning’s task was to then conquer .  We set off at 7:30 in much better conditions and managed to reach the summit in 2hrs 10 minutes which was a real good effort considering we aimed to reach this in 3.5 hours.  The decent then took another 2 hours and we managed to complete without no major incidents or injuries in just over 4 hours.  As we couldn’t complete the 14 peaks we decided not to complete the remaining 2 of the day and make a start on journey back to .

Overall we are disappointed that we could not complete the challenge but we are proud that we put life and limb on the line and put 100% effort into trying to complete it.  We would like to thank everyone for the support you have given us throughout this campaign and we are delighted with the amount of money raised for such a worthwhile charity.  Our best wishes go out to Claire and all other women who are faced with the fight against Breast Cancer and hope that our contribution helps towards finding a cure.  We will continue to raise money on this site and hopefully reach the target of £2000 and hopefully beyond.

Thank you so much!

Matt, Darryl, Ray & Tom 

 

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Our colleague and close friend Claire Lancefield was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer.  Claire is now at home and has started on her course of Chemotherapy and will undergo Radiotherapy soon after that. She will then face more treatment over the next few years.  

Claire has dealt with this blow with such courage and self belief that it has inspired us to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Campaign and help support Claire and other women that are faced with the same illness. 

We will therefore attempt to complete the Welsh 3000's -14 Peak Challenge.  This is a 26 mile/20 hour challenge that consists of us climbing all 14 of the Mountain summits of Snowdonia, ending with the final climb of Mount Snowdon. This is the largest of Snowdonia, standing at 3850ft. It is a challenge that will test all 4 of us to our limits.  Throughout the challenge we will take photo's of the breathtaking views and capture all 14 of the peaks.  We are also lucky enough to have been sponsored by Verismic and RadioBug (Internet Radio Station), who we will be in constant communication with and provide live feeds from the mountains.  You can follow our footsteps on the day at www.absolutelyradiobug.net/claire.html

We will start the challenge on Sat 29th May 6am and and hope to cover 17 miles in 12 hours, hitting 12 of the 14 peaks.  We will then camp over night and set off on sunday at 6:30am and we will attempt the 2 remaining accents (including Mount Snowdon).  This will involve the crossing of Crib Goch.  (Pictures of this are on the left hand side of the website).  We hope to finish the challenge on Sunday afternoon and return back home.

Please could you support us in such a worthwhile cause and exciting challenge and show your support to Claire and the Breast Cancer Campaign by donating....