65,000 steps, 40km forwards, 2km up, three mountains climbed, eighteen hours. Five girls in the L6^th Form completed the gruelling Welsh Three Peaks challenge on Sunday in order to raise money for the Indian Orphanage that they hope to visit after completing U6^th Form next year.

We started on Pen Y Fan shortly after midnight at a cracking pace, with head torches lighting the path, and startling the sheep, returning to the bus only two hours later in high spirits with one out of three peaks completed. After two hours in the bus, with the sun rising somewhere behind the clouds we tackled Cadair Idris, and if anyone had begun to think this challenge would be a walk in the park, they were soon corrected! Cadair is taller than the first mountain, we started from a lower altitude and the mountain ends in a ridge that takes you up, down and up again before making it to the top. We were rained on for almost the entirety of the climb, with very little visibility. As we crawled back into the bus four and a half hours later, legs aching, clothes soaking, everyone wondered if we could really manage Wales’ tallest mountain in only a couple of hours’ time. However, a mug of hot chocolate and a dry pair of socks can do wonderful things, and spirits were once again soaring as a few breaks in the cloud gave us some spectacular views for large parts of our final ascent of the day. After just over five hours on Snowdon, we didn’t linger over our well-deserved pub feast! Bed beckoned and a very good night’s sleep was had by all. My congratulations to all the staff and pupils involved; an album of photos from the weekend can be seen below.

Stefan Davies - Challenge Organiser