Taking advantage of a 23 hour weather window in North Wales, Graham Nash and I got down this weekend to do a Paddy Buckley, with the support of Liz Barker and Jim Mann. Following a photo with a man wearing a muzzle and a rope (towel was a late addition), we left Capel Curig at midday on Saturday on a clockwise round, 15 minutes after the rain stopped.
We made reasonable progress across the summits, hillocks, tussocks and fences that count as tops, dodging the worst of the bogs and by dusk we were comfortably up on schedule. Liz and Jim took turns at enduring our chat to Craig Wen. Darkness slowed us considerably as we crossed Yr Aran towards a deserted Snowdon a little before midnight, the trains having stopped for the night. The not-quite-full moon broke through the cloud for much of the night. Dawn and sunrise on the Glyders buoyed us towards the last leg across the Carneddi, where Liz joined us again. Speculation was rife. Would man-in-muzzle-and-rope still be at our start-finish point? Would Jim have taken his place? Did Jim have rope? If we started at ‘man-in-muzzle-and-rope-tied-to-post’ but finished at ‘just the post’ could we call the round complete? We completed at ‘just the post’ in 22h 28m, 15 minutes before it started to rain again.
We were both humbled by the knowledge of the round shown by Liz and Jim, as well as their willingness and enthusiasm to share in this adventure.
This completes the ‘big 3’ for Graham who also now joins a short list of runners to complete all 3 rounds in a season.
John Ryan