Their story, in their words….
We had been planning for a long expedition for a long time, and when the Mark Evison Foundation came to our college, we knew we’d finally have the much-awaited opportunity. With our experience in scouting and the army cadets respectively, we knew we would have to really push ourselves to our limits, and after some searching and weighing up our limitations due to COVID-19, we had settled on the SAS training ground of the Brecon Beacons in South Wales, as for route? Simple – The South Wales Traverse – usually a route traversed in 24hours by the worlds best fell runners.
We started in high hopes at 5 in the morning, planning for our trip ahead while still being super tired, hoping that the first day wouldn’t present too many hurdles. After many hours of travelling we arrived in the town of Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh/English border, and we knew that our endeavour meant no turning back. After a quick stop for lunch we started on our way across some of Wales’ best countryside. The first day remained mainly uneventful until the last hurdle, where we were met with a river and a field of horses, which challenged us to make quick decisions on our safety and crossing challenging terrain, but we managed to arrive at our campsite ahead of schedule, and tucked into a good dinner.
The second day lead us into the real mountains, namely Waun Fach, the highest hill this side of the Brecons. We quickly gained altitude, doing most of the days climbing within a couple hours of leaving the campsite, at the cost of a couple ankle injuries. Having assessed the situation as stable we marched on, reaching Waun Fach on time and then making the quick descent into Cwmdu. Having finally been able to tackle the first day of mountains we felt accomplished, like we had achieved a lot, but the hardest parts were still to come.
Third day was probably our favourite day. Due to the excursions the day before we decided to take the day a bit easier, taking a slightly flatter route to the mountains. The weather was beautiful and when we got to the small park where the mountains were and our spirits were high (also helped by staying in a hostel that night)
Fourth day however was definitely the most difficult and heartbreaking. Having woken up early and still feeling amazing after yesterdays success, we were ready to try and climb the highest point in the Brecon Beacons, Pen Y Fan. We started making our way there in good spirits, the little drizzle didn’t stop us. We were going round taking photos of the stunning valley we were in, feeling great about the climb, until the weather turned against us. We battled against lashing rains and howling winds as we made our way up the lower slopes, and quickly we had made the decision that it was safer to turn around. Feeling slightly defeated we trudged our way onto our next accommodation.
Despite our last-minute failure, we had however, completed most of what we had set out to do, we had climbed hills over 800meters with over 2km of climbing, walked around 40 miles and been able to experience some of the best scenery that Wales could bring, and on the train home we felt kind of proud of ourselves! We had pushed ourselves to our limits and completed a lot, and maybe some day we would finally be able to climb Pen Y Fan in its entirety.
