Terry the Mountain Goat, Part One - Run to the Hills

As I sat on a tightly packed coach, with my rucksack sat on my lap and gripping on to my borrowed walking poles, I looked out of the window at the rolling Welsh countryside and wondered how I’d got involved in all this in the first place.

It was, as I recalled, a simple exchange with a work colleague who, knowing I’d just completed a fun run, suggested I might like another challenge. How about climbing the Three Peaks of Snowdon, Scafell Pike, and Ben Nevis, over the course of a couple of days? The sensible part of my brain was shouted down by the more reckless part who was bellowing “How hard can it be?” in my ears.

As the coach weaved its way past little stone houses I looked on in envy at those occupants who hadn’t closed their curtains, who were bringing their evening to a close and were, most likely, looking forward to their bed. I, on the other hand, was about to climb my first mountain, in the dark.

Only six hours before I’d been standing on Platform 16 of Euston station, along with around 43 other teams all spending the next few hours living on a specially chartered train, watching the Rock Choir sing us off, much to the bemusement of the normal commuters arriving from Manchester and Milton Keynes.

I’d met my team, some of whom for the first time. Neil I knew from work, but Adam and Alan were unknown quantities.

Neil is a sensible type of guy and he was plainly going to be the Akela of the group. He had all the kit and could map read. He gave us a map-reading lesson on the journey up but I could tell that it wasn’t sinking in with any of us.

Adam looked the part with his bushy beard and Bear Grylls kit but in reality was a laid back guy with a very dry sense of humour. Alan on the other hand was louder and more brash, the kind of guy you don’t miss when you’re down the pub. A proper Marmite kind of guy, you either get him or you don’t and he wouldn’t give a damn either way. 

Fortunately we all clicked fairly quickly, probably because we knew that we were all going through this ordeal together. We shared a similar sense of humour and this was the thing that was going to get us through the next two days.

So as we arrived at the Pen Y Pas car park at the base of Snowdon there was a palpable sense of anticipation in the air. There was also quite a lot of rain sharing that space and so, with hoods and hats on, we left the coach, attached our head torches and, and made our way past the check point to the winding path up the mountain, hoping that we’d be back soon.

TOMORROW: MOUNT SNOWDON BY NIGHT