Challenge 12 Climb a Mountain!

It’s been a long time since I updated anything on here as life has been full on! In mostly a good way I may add. So as my life ticks on by I am always very aware of the challenges I set myself all those years ago. This year I said to myself that I will complete two of those challenges and the first one for this year is climb a mountain. This is no easy challenge.

The mountain we decided to climb was Snowdon, with it being just over an hour and a half away from us it seemed like the best choice.  As me and Steph had never attempted anything like this before we spent most our mornings in the months before the climb in the gym building our fitness levels up. We had also planned to do multiple practice hikes up various hills in and around our area. Unfortunately life got in the way of those plans and in the end we only managed one practice hike around the hills of Lake Vyrnwy the month before, which didn’t exactly go to plan as we did get somewhat lost in very wet conditions. Not a great start but we both came to the conclusion that Snowdon was not going to be as hard as that. Oh how naive we were.

We had decided to do a sunset climb so the plan was to be at the summit as the sun was setting. Our climb began at 18:30 with a plan to be sitting at the summit for around 21:30, it all seemed so simple. We set off in high spirits and the walk from the car park to the foot of the mountain was a nice and steady incline. The path to the summit was the Llanberis path which is meant to be the easiest path to take and with us being very inexperienced we felt this was our best option.

Like I said the walk from the car park to the foot of the mountain was a nice steady incline, we felt confident we could make our scheduled time. That is until we came to the foot of the mountain and saw the first challenge that lay ahead of us. Within a matter of 20 steps the incline went from steady to very steep incline, within 10 minutes our legs were feeling the burn and our lungs were refusing to put the oxygen we required into our bodies. Two kilometres in there seemed to be no levelling out of this initial incline, I could tell Steph had her worried face on, it became clear we came into this unprepared for what was in front of us.

Just over three kilometres in the incline finally began to ease and with us now being on the gravel path, we decided to take a little break compose ourselves and get some fluids into us. My main concern was Steph, physically it was tough but mentally it was even harder and she was beginning to doubt she could reach the top. I reassured her that she could in fact reach the top and that we were in this together. With some water in us we pressed on, we backed our pace off a little and once again began the long hard climb to the roof of Wales.

Now two hours in and we had began to settle in to our stride, we still had our tough moments and with the path being rocky and rough we pressed on carefully watching our step. This was proving difficult for me as the views had me bewitched, I simply could not take my eyes off them. Me not watching where I was going to did result in me taking a couple of half tumbles, which then resulted in Steph having to constantly repeat herself telling me to watch what I’m doing.  

Three hours in and incline again began to increase, our legs were really starting to feel the burn and the rough terrain really didn’t help. We wished we had been more prepared and we regretted not doing enough practice hikes, to be honest I don’t think our fitness levels were the issue I think it was more the fact that we had not put our bodies through anything like this before which shocked them somewhat. Even though our bodies were screaming at us to stop we could feel how close we were to the summit and there was no way we were stopping now.

Four hours in and we had finally done it! The last half an hour had damn nearly killed us, the weather had turned on us and at one point we could barely see ten foot in front of us but we had made it! By far the hardest challenge to date had just been completed and I did it with my partner for life by my side. All we had to do now was walk a long way back down to the car, something that neither of us was looking forward to.

In the end it took us just over two hours to get back to the car and even though we had reached our goal we both felt the mountain had conquered us. As me and Steph don’t like that feeling we have decided to do some more training over the summer and go for it again, but this time we will be fully prepared for what lies ahead.

 

 

The Next Step (CHALLENGE 89 SHOWER IN A WATERFALL)

Since we returned from our trip to Copenhagen we unknowingly wondered onto a path that has caused so much stress we both nearly crumbled under the pressure. Of course all this stress has been caused by our jobs, for me personally it should of been a happy time in work life as I had just been promoted so I should be beaming with happiness. Promotions are a strange thing though; the people who you’ve worked with for many years side by side suddenly see you as the enemy and try their hardest to disengage from you. For the first time in my work life I found myself on the outside feeling completely alone and with nobody assisting me the worry started to creep in that my promotion wouldn’t last too long and I would soon find myself back with the people that are no choosing to ignore me. This wasn’t good – I had to something to get some stability back.

At the same time I was going through this Steph found herself under a mountain of pressure coming from her place of work which would not let up. It just got worse and worse. Steph was now finding herself working later and later into the night and when she did come home all she would be thinking was that she would have to climb the mountain all over again tomorrow, there was just no letting up. As the weeks continued the pressure for both us continued to rise, we were now not eating most nights and when we did it was junk food and it was well after nine at night, not good for someone with a sensitive stomach like me. Our happy home life was now being affected and we had to get on top of things. I had an idea and it involved one of my challenges, challenge 89 to be exact.  Challenge 89 is to shower in a waterfall, daft I know but I figured this could wash away all the the stress of the past 6 weeks or so and wipe the slate clean. After a little research I discovered Lake Vynwy has a waterfall and our friends had a caravan there we could use for the weekend. So it was decided Lake Vynwy would be our fresh start.

Steph though wanted Lake Vynwy to be a proper fresh start for her, so on the day we were due to leave and the day after her birthday she made a very bold and brave decision and handed in her notice.

With her notice handed in Steph instantly felt the stress drift away, all we had to do now was get to Lake Vynwy. Now this is a place we have been to countless times before so we knew the way, but this trip was different as we were celebrating and me and Steph always celebrate with style. So the iPod was plugged into the car and we belted out every cheesy song we had on it and as the journey progressed and the day turned to night I suddenly realised we should of been at Lake Vrnwy hours ago. A quick check of google maps showed my mistake, somehow I had managed to drive past Lake Vynwy and keep going for another 60 miles or so…….. Feeling like a prize idiot I turned the car around and began the 60 mile journey to Lake Vynwy. An hour and a half later we had made it and apart from attempting to get into the wrong caravan the journey went relatively smoothly, but for now it was time to relax. We had a day of exploring ahead of us tomorrow.

We woke early to a typically welsh morning (slightly damp) but we were smiling we had never been to such a peaceful place and in the morning light the Welsh hills looked ever so inviting and we were happy to accept their invite. We donned on our shorts and comfy shoes and began our mission to find the waterfall. After doing some wondering around the lake itself it was time to find the waterfall and after a delightful walk through the valley we finally had the waterfall in sight. Even from a distance we could hear the water thundering down the rocks and as the valley opened up we caught our first sight of the waterfall and what a glorious sight it was! It was much higher than I thought it would be and by the sound of it, it had some serious power! Now I was a little concerned it would be too powerful for me to get in.

Not allowing the fear of been washed away stop us we continued our journey to the waterfall, the closer we got the more excited I felt about completing another one of my challenges. Soon we were at the base of the waterfall and there were people and dogs everywhere and to top it all off the waterfall really did have some serious power to it. Now I was nervous not only was there a very strong chance I would be swept away by the water but I now had an audience to witness me making a complete tit of myself.

After some contemplation and after we fussed some of the dogs playing in the stream we figured I had made a tit of myself plenty of times in the past and we had no doubt I would plenty more times in the future. With our braves faces on we waded our way through the stream and climbed up the side of the waterfall, carefully hopping from stone to stone so we didn’t sink into the soft ground. As we hopped our way higher we realised we now had everyone watching us and now the pressure was growing I knew these people were just waiting for us to slip and tumble our way back down. But we didn’t tumble we continued to climb until we found the place I could jump in.

As I sat on the rock cautiously trying to assess how deep the water was I realised my stresses had already started to drift away, I suddenly felt strong. Worried the feeling wouldn’t last I whipped my t-shirt off and in a flash I was in! Yes that slightly porky person you can see in the picture below looking a little worried is me! The first thing that hit was the water was bloody freezing but next and more worryingly was how strong the under current was, I was barely able to keep my balance. I inched my way forward determined to get actually under the water fall but the closer I got the stronger the under current became. 

Now I was within an arms length of being inside the waterfall but as I slowly inched forward I began to lose my footing, the water suddenly became deeper and the under water current was stronger than ever. I quickly realised pressing on could be foolish and more importantly dangerous and I very much doubted that Steph would want her final photograph to be of me tumbling down a waterfall breaking my neck. With that I turned around and made my way back to safety with a pinch of disappointment in my heart that I had failed to complete my challenge. For me and Steph though the trip had served its purpose, our stresses like I nearly was had been swept away in the water. This chapter in our lives was coming to an end but an all new exciting chapter was just about to start and we were ready for anything. 

Being unable to complete the challenge has left me feeling a little frustrated but at the same time it’s made me even more determined than ever to find a waterfall and take a shower. For now number 89 remains unticked but I will change that to a tick. That’s a promise.