Kinder Scout… hill or mountain?

As the highest point in the Peak District in Derbyshire I had always thought of Kinder Scout as a peak or a hill rather than a mountain. However, as Wikitravel and other websites classify Kinder Scout as a mountain, I’ve added it as the third mountain climbed in 2018! (And at 636 meters it was actually higher than Slieve Tooey last Saturday which is a mountain…)

Chris and I had a great weekend with 5 of our friends where we camped in Edale and climbed Kinder Scout last Saturday in lovely sunny weather.

By complete contrast we climbed another two peaks the following day in torrential rain, temperatures not much above freezing and high winds!

Slieve Tooey

My second mountain of 2018! As part of a group of 7 I climbed to the 511 m summit of Slieve Tooey in County Donegal, Ireland last weekend. After a fantastically warm summer of record breaking temperatures, our climb was wet and windy with the remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto at the top! Thankfully we were in the safe hands of Kevin, our guide. With the mist and poor visibility at the top his navigation and map reading skills were essential. A full blog post of my Donegal weekend can be found on my travel blog.

Reaching the summit of Carnedd Llewelyn

This has been the most difficult of my 50 challenges so far!

At 1064 meters Carnedd Llewelyn is the second highest mountain in Wales, after Snowdon. This involved 9 hours of climbing in poor weather conditions and tough mountain terrain. Full details can be found in our travel blog.

Mountain experience

11357146_10206761958065732_579446131118161101_o — Climbing Glyder Fach

While I’ve completed many treks through the UK’s Lake District, Peak District, coastal paths and quite a few abroad, I don’t have a huge amount of mountain experience. I have, however, been fortunate to have climbed the following UK mountains:

The last mountain I climbed was Ben More in May 2017 which is the highest mountain on the Isle of Mull, Scotland. Due to being unfit and at least a stone or so overweight I really struggled with this. We were fortunate to have perfect weather conditions yet I found the whole climb daunting and difficult as I tried to haul my weight up the steep slopes towards the summit. This frustration at being so unfit was actually one of my real driving forces to get much fitter in 2018.

I have a weekend in Snowdonia coming up and while I’m not yet sure which mountain we will climb I am hoping that with my weight loss and increased exercise routine (gym, swimming and walking) I won’t find the next mountain climb to be quite as much of a struggle!