Duncan and Chris Paddy Buckley round

2nd May
10 miles 5,500 ft

Ian and I started to enjoy our bacon bun in the pinnacle café in Capel curig just as Chris came in to his 2nd rest stop. We had travelled down to help both of them on their PB attempts. Duncan was going to start here at 10:00 am, where as Chris had started in Pont Caer Gors some 10 ½ hours earlier. Chris was going well and took a quick breather before heading off to Moel siabod and the start of his third leg.

Ian set off with a nervous Duncan on a fine day. Dead on 10 am I waved them off, then set about killing 6 hours of time, prior to helping Chris on his final leg. After successfully killing the time I made my way around to Aberglaslyn where I joined Chris on his final leg. He was still going strong and soon we were off, I was nominated as the navigator, somewhat reluctantly I took up the challenge. It was only my 3rd trip around this leg, and one of those was my own round. So I wasn’t exactly confident. But in the clear weather it wasn’t to be too much trouble.

Apart from a few minor errors we pretty much took the ideal lines. I proceeded to take some snaps in the gorgeous afternoon sun as we made our way towards Y Gyrn. As we descended to the col we started choosing our line of ascent in order to miss as much of the heather as possible. It worked and we picked a good line up. The rest of the run around the Nantlle Ridge went well, the weather started to show signs of changing as the clouds rolled onto the ridge. Chris finished strong and in an impressive time of 21 hours 26 minutes.

I got a lift and retrieved the car. There was a rumour that Ian was to have a crack at the whole round. But after 1 ½ legs and about 9 hours he started to feel tired and came down about half way along Duncan’s leg 2. We met up and made our way to Llanberis to wait for Duncan, Here I was meant to join him to go over the Glydderau on his 4th leg. So after a curry Ian and I dozed in his car waiting. At about 1 am the rain and wind started to lash the car. I thought it would be bad for Duncan on his Snowdon leg.

Duncan and his support came in revealing that they had called it a day. He had been thwarted by bad weather in much the same as last year. In fact he had done exactly the same round as last year, and been hit by bad weather at the same point in the round over Snowdon. Commiserations given, and a beautiful bacon bun courtesy of the Andy and Pam, consumed, and it was 3 am and Ian and I were off for what was to be the most tiring drive of my life.