The last few times that I’ve climbed Cader Idris, the views had been reduced by summit clouds, but today our luck was in. Great views all morning looking north across Snowdonia, although a little hazy out to sea.

It turned out to be quite a tiring day as I had to organise a split in my team. Not easy to do, but I did have a good assistant with me! After an early, but slow start up the mountain we decided to break into a ‘summit team’ and an ‘enjoying the views’ team.

As I was overall responsible for everyone on the mountain, my summit team and I had to go into top gear to reach the top trig point and get back down again to re-unite the team within our allotted time frame!

Happily, the conditions remained favourable all the way to the top – where I bumped into an ex-student who I had previously taken on expeditions to the Alps and Arctic. I was delighted to see him taking part in his own expedition journey with his University friends!

A few waves of drizzly rain caught us up on the way downhill, which meant my new ‘prototype’ jacket got a bit of ‘testing’ time (so far so good!), and soon we were all re-united and back at the minibus ready for the long drive back.

As we descended the final part of the mountain, the old gnarly trees were starting to show new growth. We stopped and admired now the new leaves suddenly appear from such old looking branches.

I was pretty exhausted by the time I got back to The Cottage that night, but very pleased to be able to watch a lesser-spotted woodpecker in the garden!