This week we are basking in the warm glow of achievement, having completed our hike up (and down) Mount Snowdon yesterday, raising money for The Christie cancer charity.
In addition to your kind donations and well wishes, lots of you have been asking for photos and enquiring as to how we got on. I’m sharing it with you via this blog, with photographs for your viewing pleasure and sadistic amusement.
What do you mean ‘fully booked’?!
What the top of Snowdon looks like. Not that we’d know…
So, our original plan was simple:
Hike up to the peak of Mt Snowdon.
Drink in the views.
Catch the train back down the mountain.
Bask in the glory of a job well done over a pint.
Easy right? Well, you know what they say about best laid plans….
The night before at the Craig-y-Dderwen Hotel in Betwys, spirits were high, despite some rather unconventional socially-distanced eating arrangements. However, faces paled and night-cap enthusiasm evaporated, as the barman cheerfully informed us that one-way tickets for trains back down the mountain were fully booked due to Coronavirus.
In one fell stroke, our planned 7km hike up the mountain had become a 14km hike, up then back down again. Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Most of us weren’t seasoned hikers, but how hard could it be?!
The next morning we assembled at Llanberis to draw up battle plans over several tonnes of fried breakfast and a few gallons of strong coffee.
Setting off up the trail the weather held and the views on the way up were beautiful.
Unfortunately an hour or so into the hike, the temperature dropped and it started lashing it down, with strong winds, thick fog and cloud obscuring the way ahead.
After several hours of climbing we thought we’d reached the top, but, disappointingly, it turned out there was still plenty more mountain to climb hidden in the fog ahead…
When we finally reached the summit, we arrived at some steps and had to scramble up them due to the driving wind and rain. We made it!
Here’s to the Christie, Macclesfield Cancer Help and Alderhey Children’s Charity!
A picture from the summit as promised – the views are spectacular. Or so I hear anyway. Not quite the vista we were expecting!
Going back down was easier as gravity became a friend, not an enemy.
Halfway down the fog cleared, presenting a spectacular view, but also making us realise that in the gloom we had descended the wrong side of the mountain!
Yep, we needed to be over that side. ‘Er…guys…I think we need to go back…’
Finally on the right path and the home stretch!
We made it, mission accomplished, well done team Wetherall’s (and our partners)!
The final toll per person?
32,336 steps taken.
2,187 calories burned
324 minutes of active time
22.91 kms covered
So, it was back to work for us today, with a few aches and pains, but a major sense of achievement. It was a great team building exercise and yet another credit to the amazing people who work in this business, not to mention our supportive partners. Everyone remained utterly determined and positive throughout, despite covering three times the distance we originally planned, in high winds, driving rain and impenetrable fog.
Thanks to your generous donations, as at today, we stand at £2,105 raised for The Christie. An additional £1,500 will be donated by Wetherall’s, split between The Christie, Alderhey Children’s Charity and Macclesfield Cancer Help.
I’ll be closing the fund raising next week, but in the meantime if anyone hasn’t sponsored us yet, but would like to do so, you’ll find the link below. If you haven’t done so already, I reckon you at least owe it to us to bung in a fiver after what we went through yesterday!
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/wetherallsltd
Going forward, we’ll be running a fund raising event like this annually, to raise money for the charities you nominate in our annual client survey. We may even risk asking you for suggestions as to what challenges you would like to see us perform. Nothing too painful though please…
Thanks again for all your support, to our brilliant team and our amazing partners for getting involved. Same time next year then?!
