An early flight to somewhere exciting or an early ascent of a mountain are probably the only two good reasons to be crawling into the back of the van and setting an alarm like this before going to sleep...
Thankfully, it was well worth it - when the sun rose at 5am, we were treated to this fantastic light show!
I was taking some 6th Form students for an early ascent of Cader Idris in Mid Wales. We'd not quite got to the start point, but the colours were so bright and vivid I had to pull over the minibus so that we could take a few moments to fully appreciate the natural spectacle. For a few special moments the mountains were on fire with the orange light...
Needless to say there was no one about as we made our way up throught the gloom. After the initial burst of light, the clouds drew back over and we soon found ourselves in the mists.
Over in the distance, a ray of light was illuminating Barmouth Estuary.
It was a good natured and sociable hike, but given the time of day, nobody was really firing on all cylinders - including me!!...
After breakfast on the summit, (steak pie!) everyone was buoyed up and got into the flow for the descent, especially as the clouds broke up a bit too.
By 9:30am, we were back in the car park feeling suitable pleased with our mornings efforts.
But the day had only just begun! Next stop was Tryfan, where a fellow Mountain Leader took the group while I reclined the drivers seat and promptly fell asleep. Then finally we drove around to Pen y Pass so that the team could try an ascent of Snowdon and complete their '3 Peak Challenge'. By now the weather has completely deteriorated. They made a very respectable effort, but were turned back just short of the summit in torrential rain with gale force gusts of wind. They were all still in high spirits when they got down, but soaked to the pants and we all agreed that it was a good decision to turn back. Even though the summit had not been made, they'd still taken on the challenge - and that's what counts...
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