One Saturday afternoon recently an unexpected opportunity to have a support driver for a Welsh 3000s attempt presented itself – for the next day… not a lot of notice, but it was on.

The first recorded attempt to summit all the mountains of Wales over 3000ft, in a single effort, under 24 hours that I’ve been able to find is that of a small group led by Eustace Thomas in 1919. A deep dive into the Rucksack Club journal of that year – an incredible, complete archive of their journals is available on their website – features it as little more than a footnote in a section summarising a variety of adventures undertaken by club members:

In that same section there is also a record of a large round in the Lakes before the Bob Graham had been established, and in the 1920 journal I read of a Eustace Thomas trip where he converted a car to have an ambulance body fitted and built two beds in the back for him and a friend to drive around the country in, bog trotting and peak bagging…

The main reason I had a Welsh 3000s attempt in mind though was from reading Thomas Firbank’s I Bought a Mountain, and the chapter about his record ‘walk’ in the late 30s – clocking a time of 8h25m. Not just, but maybe slightly, because of the Tolkienian map…

The 5 hours sleep I got Saturday night probably wasn’t ideal, but I was up early enough to be parked in Nant Peris ready for the first Snowdon Sherpa bus up to Pen-y-Pass. Disembarking the bus among a motley crew of hill walkers I set off to reach the start of the attempt – the summit of Snowdon – under clear blue skies at 7.30am.

An hour and a quarter’s climbing, in relative peace but surprising heat, and I hadn’t even begun; but I was in the queue to touch the highest cairn in Wales and get going. I just had to wait for the guy who’d taken up his football club’s flag for some photos. He queued twice, feeling too guilty to take all the time he wanted in one hit…

At 9am I started in earnest, down and quickly over Garnedd Ugain and along the Crib Goch Ridge – surprised to pass by some scousers scrambling along with a boombox thumping out tunes.

I swung left for a dash down the Crib Goch North Ridge where a scree-sliding navigational error took me over some open fell and past the stunning Llyn Glas; a little picture postcard mountain lake with a tiny island that could probably accommodate one tent nicely… and from there on down to the first road crossing at Nant Peris. The family were waiting with a flask of coffee and some extra, much needed calorific supplies. I left them with the request for some Lucozade Sport at the next road crossing – a craving for the stuff had come over me for who knows what reason, having not drunk any for as long as I could remember.

The climb up Elidir Fawr was an utterly monotonous, entirely unrelenting slog… and reading round the Rucksack Club’s various articles on 3000s attempts, others seemed to agree:

As I gained the top, I was caught up by Al who’d been closing the gap on me steadily through the ascent. He was wearing little more than the La Sportiva TX5 boots that he happily sprinted downhill in.

He was also making an attempt on the 3s, and I stuck with him for a while, but with his Joss Naylor physique, he just walked away from me on the steep ascents… especially up towards Glyder Fawr where I really started to go under. Just before he moved out of view, I saw him pull a bottle of Lucozade Sport out of his little bag… faster than me, AND he had Lucozade Sport!

I started feeling as rough as the terrain I was covering over the tops of the Glyderau – I was pretty much running on empty, except that I wasn’t running at all; the technical, rocky ground underfoot was a deeper drain on resources than I’d expected, and I was just plodding rock to rock.

I skidded down the scree at the side of Bristly Ridge, barely made it up Tryfan and then on the slow grind down (for me at least – the descent record is 7 minutes 21 seconds; it’s 1.1km with 600m of vertical drop!!!) I was thinking about calling it a day at the coming Ogwen road crossing. There was still a long way to go, and I was way off pace of matching Thomas Firbank’s time, which had been my overly optimistic ideal when setting out.

But my son ran up to meet me near the car park, toting a bottle of the isotonic orange elixir I needed, and maybe things were looking up.

I spent something like 30 or 40 minutes by the side of Llyn Ogwen, drinking Lucozade, coffee, coke and water and eating whatever was available, weighing up my options. With two mountain ranges done, and arguably the easiest one left – and certainly the one I knew best – I decided to push on up the steep nose of Pen yr Ole Wen and try to make it across the Carneddau.

It took a long while to trudge and scramble up to the high ground of that range, but I started to feel better and the view back over towards the Glyders, and the Snowdon Massif beyond once I was high enough – the view back at the mountains I’d already covered – was one to enjoy. And I knew that once the relative plateau of the Carnedd’s was gained, the ground was mostly runnable and all the worst of the climbing was behind me.

A peregrine falcon soared by me on my right, and an ocean of cloud sat off the lip of the ridge on my left, wisping around but not advancing beyond it’s invisible limit, as I jogged between Carnedd Dafydd and Carnedd Llewelyn.

Before I made it to that summit and the high point of this last leg though, I had to veer away onto a small track to pick off the only outlying peak of the natural ridgeline route, Yr Elen, where I caught up with Ben on his attempt. He’d set off from Pen y Pass at 3am, for a 5am departure from Snowdon summit, and he was wearing a fully fluoro outfit, with matching poles.

A quick retreat back from Yr Elen and I was over the top of Carnedd Llewelyn and briefly on familiar terrain, dropping onto a broad track and into wisping mist, towards Foel Grach, Carnedd Gwenllian and on for a final push towards Foel-fras, leaping bog pools and feeling happy to know I’d reach the end. But also aware that the end isn’t the end on the 3000s…

The final summit was done, and Ben’s girlfriend who was waiting for him there took a picture of me at that final cairn, that my dodgy little camera with the wrong date set didn’t handle well.

All finished, except I still had to get down off the hills… many people drop down towards Aber from here, but I continued on over Drum and Drosgl to meet the family at Bwlch y Ddeufen – Pass of the Two Stones – at the top of the former Roman road that came up from Caerhun away on the banks of the River Conwy near home.

I managed a Summit to Summit traverse in a little over 10 hours, but it was more like 13 hours road to road… nearer 15 hours car to car, and 17 door to door… It was a long day in the hills, and my feet and legs knew it. But then I can’t think of a better way to feel so bad. I won’t be doing it again, unless an opportunity presents itself… There’s still that 8h25m time waiting. The current FKT, set by Finlay Wild in 2019, just inside 4h11m will never be on the cards though.

-

I’d like to thank Chris for giving up a day to drive my family around Snowdonia to meet me at the road crossings and to take me to pick my car up at the end of a long day. I’d like to thank Patagonia for a pair of shorts they gave me about 9 years ago for a different run that are still going strong, and Mizuno for a pair of these they sorted me out with. And I’d like to thank the isotonic orange elixir for making the whole thing possible.