Endurance and sleep deprivation.

Yesterday I drove down to Youlgreave in the Peak District to help with a 26 mile Marie Curie charity walk. My role was to act as a guide, and walk in the middle of the group of 80 walkers, making sure everyone was okay and didn’t get lost.

I tagged along with a group of 3 lovely people Steve, Emma and Lorraine, who had all raised considerable amounts of sponsorship for the Marie Curie charity, and all 3 were determined to finish. Apart from a heavy shower the weather was warm and dry, the route was stunning with plenty of wildlife on show and the company was excellent.

Well done to my 3 walking companions and to the many more that completed this gruelling challenge. Once the last walker had crossed the finish line and all the flags and markers had been collected I was free to go, so I made my way straight to my next job in Llanberis, North Wales

My next job was a night walk up Snowdon for a company called Large Outdoors who have events all over the UK every weekend.

I met up with the other Mountain Leader Kevin O’Brian at about 1.15 am then met the rest of the group at 1.30 am. Kevin is a brilliant photographer and his website is worth a visit. (https://www.kevinobrian.co.uk/). Once the team were fully briefed and kit checked we were on our way up the steep road to towards the Llanberis path. There was no gentle intro to this walk, you are straight into the steepest section of the whole walk, but once off the road and onto the path the gradient is a bit gentler.

The skies looked promising, there was some clouds, the moon and some stars on show and we thought we would be treated to a spectacular sunrise. However about half way up the clouds closed in and we eventually realised that we were not going to see any sunrise. We arrived at the summit bang on sunrise at 5.15 am, and whilst we were all at the trig the clouds opened briefly in the opposite direction from the sunrise where we were treated to some stunning views. After a few more photos we made our way back down, we were treated to a few more views on the way down and eventually arrived back at Llanberis about 8.30 am.

A really great group who all made it to the top, and it certainly made our job easier. Well done guys and a pleasure to meet you all.

On the way home I certainly needed to pull over for a half hour power nap and once at home crashed on the sofa for a few hours.