“One way to get the most out of life is to look upon it as an adventure”
I was recently invited to speak at Car Fest North about family adventure. I think it’s vital for children of all ages to get outside and the aim of the talk was to encourage families that adventure really can be both accessible and affordable.
CarFest gang: Nick — co founder of Uganda Marathon, me, Jo Pickard — event organiser and all round legend
The average person spends 90% of their life indoors and over 8 hours a day on electronic devices. The figures are no less depressing for children, who spend less than 30 minutes a week playing outside. Social media is an ever present and addictive presence in modern day life with users between 15–19 spending 3 hours a day checking their accounts — a figure only 1 hour less for the age 20–29 age group. (I do appreciate the irony of sharing this through an online blog…)
I try to emphasize through my talks that whilst we can’t all be (and might not even want to be!) full time adventurers, each of us is able to make the time and space to be active and get outside.
With this in mind, I followed my own advice and tagged on a mini adventure to my weekend. A quick look at a map told me I was only about an hour away from my good friend and fellow KEEN ambassador Jason Rawles who lives in Llanberis in Wales. Home to the UK’s highest peak and in many ways one big adventure playground, the opportunity was too good to resist!
Hello, Wales!
It was around 8pm on Friday when we got to Wales. Jason, always the most wonderful of hosts, greeted us with cold ciders which we enjoyed on his balcony over looking Llyn Padarn, before heading out for dinner.
The view from Jason’s balcony!
A few hours later, with bellies full of pizza (and more cider), we were ready to take on the world . We were still passionately chatting away when we realized the restaurant was closing. A short walk back to the flat and we were back on the balcony once more; listening to power anthems and drinking a whisky nightcap out of our KEEN mugs.
Putting our KEEN mugs to good use!
As Friday night creeped into the early hours of Saturday morning, our thoughts started to drift towards how to spend the next 24 hours. With so much opportunity on our doorstep, where to start? I confessed I’d never actually been to the top of Snowdown and Jason suggested we could take a quiet, slightly trickier path up — we had a plan! The alarm was set for us to be out of the door around 7:30am.
Groggily rising the next morning, I’m not sure any of us felt like we could take on Snowdon, let alone the world, but being consummate professionals we persevered and headed out for a hearty breakfast in the one and only Pete’s Eats.
From here, via a quick stop to the local Spar shop to get some food for the day, we were on our way! I’ve been spending a lot of time in London since coming back from the Channel Islands and driving through the mountains made my heart happy.
The noticeable perk of the Lyn Watkin path is that although it’s a bit trickier than some of the other paths, it’s infinitely quieter. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and it felt like we mostly had the route to ourselves. It was absolute bliss.
By the time we’d stopped for our lunch break, I was in love:
As we neared the summit, there was some scrambling to be done. I tried my best to channel my inner mountain goat but as we were going up, others were going down and every time I saw someone slip my stomach flipped. In the space of 10 minutes 3 people in a row had briefly skidded on the gravelly surface and, rather unhelpfully, my brain was flooded with fear of tumbling down the mountain, no matter how unlikely this was. I’d never really considered that I might get nervous at any point on the route and my reaction took me by surprise. We pushed on and up into the clouds, Jason leading the way and Nick behind me. I refused to look down and sang Katy Perry songs loudly in my head as a distraction. As effective as these tactics were, I was still relieved when we reached the top. My relief, however, was short-lived and replaced with total surprise at how busy the summit was. Having barely seen other people all day, I hadn’t really anticipated the frenzy and it seemed surreal that there were queues forming in every direction. With families and friends there for a day out, getting off the train wearing flip-flops and carrying lager cans in their hands, it seemed more like a day out at a local festival than the highest point in the UK. We hastily touched the summit and all agreed to get down quickly.
Jason and I putting the KEEN Versatrails through their paces
We opted for the Llanberis path on the way down and this, being one of the most accessible route, was also packed full of people. On the one hand, it was wonderful to see so many people outside but I’ll confess that by the time we came across a group of girls playing music from their phones and smoking cigarettes, I had a new found appreciation for the serenity of the Watkin path. Reaching a summit is great, but there’s a lot to be said for savoring the journey, too.
We made it down and discovered Jason had one more trick up his sleeve — a hidden waterfall.
Once again we found ourselves greedily soaking up some peace and quiet in a hidden spot of Llanberis. It was the perfect opportunity to cool down our feet:
From here, we made our way back to the flat — stopping off for the obligatory ice cream en route:
Celebratory ice cream with a view!
We arrived back at the flat weary, sweaty and happy. The next day, we were already driving back to London via a pit stop in Shewsbury for Sunday lunch with a friend. We’d only been away for 2 nights but sometimes a short all-immersive break is just what you need. There’s infinite adventure to be packed into a weekend and it’s always worth it.
Photo credit: Jason Rawles. Jason runs JR Mountaineering — check it out!
