The two King’s Bruton Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award Qualifying Teams left for Snowdonia on the morning of Friday 25^th May with sufficient equipment packed into their rucksacks to survive in the mountains for four days, come what may in terms of weather!

Our arrival at Pen y Pass Youth Hostel on Friday evening, even though it was in the murky mist was a relief after the long journey in bank holiday traffic. The Youth Hostel proved to be the ‘Premier Inn’ of hostels, enabling all the pupils to prepare themselves comfortably for the coming venture.

On Saturday morning each team departed in excellent spirits disappearing into the mist, out of view of Mrs Phippard, who always worries far too much about teams when they are not in sight! The route included an atmospheric trek around the east side of the Snowdon Horseshoe with mountainous masses looming above, past Llyn Gwynant on to lunch by Llyn Dinas. It was here that the cloud lifted to provide a sunny afternoon of route finding into camp, which was located in a delightful valley away from the bank holiday campers in crowded camp sites.

Day two started with a little thunder and heavy showers in places, (fortunately nothing like the storms in the South West) but a warm day out meant midges were lying in wait for the teams after they put up tents at wild camp two. Stiff upper lips were well tested and only positive comments returned on morning three, when Mrs Phippard was relieved to see these were hardy teams with the true DofE adventurous spirit! All the pupils were rewarded by a fabulous sunny dry day out with splendid 360 degree views, passing north of the Moelwyn and south of the Snowdon Massif, before climbing up to Llyn Ffynnon, just less than half way up Snowdon to rest before the final summit day.

On Tuesday, our teams completed their final climb up Snowdon before most tourists were out of bed, earning time on their own for the big photo at the summit. A big congratulations to all who still had sufficient energy to race to the bottom for a slap up lunch at Pete’s Eats in Llanberis. Not many managed the ‘even bigger’ breakfast though only Jacob who made his huge plate disappear before most of us had even poured our milk in our tea!

A massive "well done" to Harrie, Holly, Anna, Jacob and Hugo in the ‘mixed team’ and to Jonathan, Huw, Ben and Dennis in the 'boys' team’. Fantastic team work, highly impressive fitness, original artistic project plans, and excellent photos - plus, on top of all this, they were wonderful company for the week. King’s Bruton DofE Gold Teams are first-rate on all accounts! Thank you to Miss Brearly, Ms Miln, Norman and Charmian Wright and last (but certainly not least), Mr Phippard, for giving up their holiday time to provide such fantastic support to us all on this trip.

Laurie Phippard - Duke of Edinburgh Assistant Coordinator