Epic Wales journey
In 2021, our new content editor Will Renwick set out on a quest to climb all 189 mountains in his Welsh homeland in one solo, selfsupported trip. Dubbed Taith Galed – A Hard Journey, so it proved...
THE DAY HAD BEEN HARD, the hardest of the two weeks so far. From 7am until 8pm I spent the entire time with my chin tucked into my chest and my eyes fixed on the ground whilst the wind blasted rain straight at me. The section through Cwmorthin, the abandoned slate quarry, had been particularly difficult, with all the paths through the slate tips drowned in cascading white water and low cloud making me work hard to locate the 13 mountains of the Moelwynion that I needed to climb throughout the course of the day.
Still, I’d made it to Beddgelert, and that tough day was behind me. I was about to enjoy my first hotel so far on my attempt to climb all 189 of Wales’ mountains in one trip. It would be the chance for my first bath since setting off on foot from the South Wales coast on a sunny day in mid-September. I was ‘looking forward’ to giving my blisters and scratches some much needed TLC.
With the tub filling, a glass of whisky over my left shoulder and a Guinness on my right, I was feeling very content as I surveyed my day’s progress on the app I had been navigating with. But then I noticed it: a hilltop called Moel Penamnen, a hilltop I’d missed by about a kilometre. A hilltop that was 35 kilometres and a whole mountain range away from the bathtub in which I was now sitting, cursing my foolishness.
NUTS FOR THE NUTTALLS
I’m not sure what the polar opposite phrase for ‘as the crow flies’ is; but if I knew, I’d use it to describe the route between Swansea and Conwy that Matthew Myerscough and Mike Murray sent to me. With the help of the one other person to have linked up all of Wales’ mountains in one go – awoman called Ann Bowker – they had created an 800km route that seemed to be the most logical way to navigate between all 189 of the country’s mountains – that’s ‘mountains’ using the Nuttall definition. All in all, it involved 30,000m of up, touched three coastlines and crossed nine counties. For someone like me, who for the last 13 years has been attempting to explore every inch of my home country via its long-distance trails, it was an irresistible prospect. And so, the planning began…
The opening stage from Swansea and into the mountains started well for me. Too well, actually. In classic style, I set out too quickly. By the end of my third day on the trail, having run through the South Wales Valleys and over the Black Mountain, Pen y Fan and the central part of Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons), I was ready to quit. My ankle had flared up, which I then strapped up. This led to an angry blister,
