My Welsh 3000s Solo Attempt (2021)

Booyah! My name's Brave Dave and I am currently on the pig track heading up to the summit of Snowdon. Sunrise is in about an hour. I am out today to do the Welsh 3000s. So far I've been moving nearly two hours and I've not even started the clock yet for my 25 mile 3000s ordeal plus bonus extra at the end. 7.18am 9th of October. Sunrise in 15 minutes but I don't think there's gonna be much of a view from up here. So I've got to make the most of every minute of daylight that there is. This is about 11 hours, it's sunset. Peak of Garnichy Gain, peak number two. 11.5 minutes. Just want to get this Snowdon range out of the way. I've already done five miles just to get to the top of Snowdon. ------- hell. It's not raining but everything's wet because of the mist. I've got to be really careful. I've slipped a few times already. Not injured myself yet so that's nice. Just past the peak of Crib Goch. I'm on the main ridge now. I just overtook a group of runners. I saw them set off when I was at the top of Snowdon. They were about 10 minutes before me but they are definitely going to overtake me again when I get down off this range because I don't know if you've noticed, eagle eye viewers might see, this is like a 20 litre bag. I've got a big heavy pack waiting for me in my car at the bottom of this mountain range and that contains everything I need for the rest of the 3000s and beyond. So once that's on my back I'm slowing right down. Crib Goch, it's been a pleasure. Just ascending the north ridge with these two lads, two Welsh 3000 veterans aiming for a modest 12 hours. Those lads have carried on around that way. I've gone this way which is my normal route down. Oh I do like it when the mist clears. Makes navigation much easier. There's been a lot of rain in the last few weeks so these rocks are extra loose but nothing I'm not used to. When I was chatting to those two guys, the woman with the glasses, I asked him, so what's your least favourite part of the 3000s and he said the next peak and he means Ella Devour and I said absolutely spot on, me too. Everybody hates Ella Devour. Peak number four up in those clouds over there. Metal Bridge marks the end of the Snowdon section. One hour 33 minutes since I started at Snowdon summit. Put things into perspective, from the top down to here is two and a half miles. That's 10% of the 3000s. But now I'm going to get to my car, sop this bag out, eat as much food as I can without puking and then just go for it and enjoy the rest of the day because it's a long one. This is my new pack. Oh my goodness. Now that has some bloody weight to it. No time to waste. One hour 51 minutes. Let's get going. I'm gonna eat my pasta on the way. I've been merrily strolling along Clumb Beres Mountain Rescue. Hopefully I will not be requiring them in the next 24 hours. Just enjoy a few relaxed moments before hitting that grass slope. I've just been walking in silence for about an hour. Doesn't even feel like I'm anywhere near the top but surely I can't be that much further. I find the key to this mountain is to just not stop. The second you decide to sit down or take your bag off, it's so difficult to get up again. Oh, I really don't like this mountain. Amazing, I've actually reached the top. It's 11.02am but that took bloody ages. Chatting to two other lads just then who were also doing the 3000s, they said they got lost on Crib Goch. It took three and a half hours to get down. They somehow did a 180 on Crib Goch and started going back to it. I don't know how that's even possible. It's just at the top of Elodea Bower for about 10 minutes. Chatting to the group of friends who are running it who are passed on Crib Goch. Really nice bunch of people. Nightmare coming off the rocks from the top because they're so slippery and 11.20am. Wow, it was like seven hours until sunset. I need to get a move on. I need to increase my average speed because that really slowed it down. I've just been climbing again and no one around. It's just a howling wind. Get with the browse, there's like 50 people up here. 10 past 12, peak five. Only 10 more to go. The descent down Egan's nice and straightforward, smooth, easy going. I am plodding along. When it's flat I can kind of job with this thing on as soon as it starts going up again. Not a chance. Tell you what, that is annoying. Here we go. Start the scree slope for Glidder Bower. Dig my heels in, get on with it. Just ate half a pot of pasta while sliding and falling on the scree and swearing quite loudly. Very frustrating. Slope is finally easing off now. Literally 10 meters from the summit of Glidder Bower. I just slipped on this rock which flipped round and just cut my ******* shin. Right, let me get to the top of this. This mist is doing my head in now. 1.06pm. Check this out. It's a right slice. No wonder it started bleeding so quick. And then that, that's just one long scratch as well which immediately starts bleeding. Damn it. Right, let's put a little bandage on. All bandaged up. Now heading to Glidder Vak which is only one mile from Glidder Bower but in this mist it can be quite tricky to navigate because it's just a big rock field. There's not very clear paths at all. Just passed two guys, said hi. One of them's like, hey do I know you from YouTube? He's only out here walking today because he's inspired by my Bristley Ridge video. When the weather's like this that's when you really appreciate cairns. Little beacons leading you in the right direction. When you pass a cairn, always do your bit. One rock and it's all you have to do. Glidder Vak summit on paper looks really straightforward. In reality, it's a right bastard to get up here. Took ages just to cover like 50 metres. 1.57pm. 6 hours 39. Progress has slowed to a joke now. It's a death trap round here. I'm just getting to the top of the scree slope that leads down towards Trivon. Oh, it's nice to see a bit of view. It's just been recognised on a mountain. This is a momentous occasion. I think Jimmy's my biggest fan, he said. Yeah, I'm Brave Dave's number one fan and I'm here. I'm just miles apart. Yeah. I'm doing a 3,000. Good to meet you. I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that the sun comes out for him. Yes, thank you. That'd be nice. Nice to see you all. There's the top. 7 hours 53 minutes. Got three hours of daylight left. Not good. This is not very fast. Paranoid about slipping. After I got down the rocky part of the West Gully, I decided not to go down the very steep grass track because I would definitely fall over multiple times down there. Instead, I'm just following these steps all the way down. I just totally wiped out on some wet grass. Oh, that actually hurt, but I'm very lucky I didn't land on a rock. All right, it's 4.27. It's 9 hours 9 minutes since I set off from the summit of Snowdon. I've just walked up this road to go to those trees and start heading up Penny O'Wen. All my motivation just suddenly went... I thought, this doesn't make any sense. Just suddenly realised I can't be arsed to do 10 miles of Carnethi, mostly in the dark as well. That's the other thing you've got to remember. This guy's called Charlie, and I just explained to him my woes and my problem and the fact that the car is miles away and I'm injured. He's like, I'll give you a lift there. I was like, all right. Thanks, Charlie. Hello. It's 20 to 9 on Sunday. So my Welsh 3000 attempt was yesterday. As you saw, it's a bit of a miserable failure. So two excuses for failing it. One, I'm a really heavy pack and two, all the rocks are soaked and it really slows you down trying to cross them. My backpack was massive because I was carrying all my sleeping kit. The idea was I get to the last peak and obviously I'm in pitch black in the middle of nowhere so I then have to bivvy out on the hills that night and then the next morning work out how I'm getting back to this valley. I did have to make a decision and I do believe that was the most sensible one. So I'm just sat on a wall in Ogwen Valley feeling a bit sorry for myself, soaking wet. The cut on my shin, this just did not stop bleeding yesterday and it was filthy from slipping into the boggy water. So I just sat there thinking, oh great, not long left now till it's dark. I'm going to have the shittiest night's sleep ever because I wasn't feeling it at all. But then I kind of like semi-joked to myself, oh, wouldn't it be good if someone recognised me? And they were like, oh, I'll give you a lift. And I'm not kidding, right, within one minute, literally one minute of me kind of having this thought and chuckling to myself, that guy walked past me, stopped and went, Dave, isn't it? It's Dave. And I was like, yeah, it is. He's called Charlie, absolutely ace guy. He drove me all the way around back to my car. I got cleaned up in the river, put on clean clothes again and sorted my shitty cut out and then we both drove to Canberra and I bought him takeaway because we're both hungry and the least I could do is buy him dinner. And then we just hung out in the car park by Canberra for ages just chatting. It was just really nice. So three cheers to Charlie, that was awesome of him. And now this morning, look at this, autumnal sunshine coming down the valley. This view will do me for now before I head off home. Yesterday I was like, what was I thinking? This is stupid, I'm never going to do this again. And now I'm already thinking, how would I do it again, but this time actually succeed. The difficult part is having to carry everything yourself, including all your sleeping kit, because you don't want to get to the end of the 3000s and not have any shelter. So doing it solo is bloody difficult, unless you're mega fit and can do the 3000s back to back. In that case, you just get to the end, think, yay, turn around and run back to the car. But not sure I'm quite at that level yet. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.