Over the May bank holiday weekend 19 students from Leighton Park undertook their Gold DofE practice in northern Snowdonia. The students completed three challenging days of hiking over some of the highest mountains in Wales. Creature comforts were left behind as the group ‘wild camped’ in picturesque spots in the Carneddau mountain range which has It has 19 peaks over 600m in height, of which seven are over 914m. They were blessed with some beautiful weather; staying hydrated and sunburn free was difficult but the students rose to the challenge!
Max (Lower Sixth) commented, ” We left on Friday at 2 o’clock on two buses and it was a long journey there. It was a really good chance to do wild camping for the first time; it was quite exciting. I was a bit nervous because it was the first time I’ve done wild camping. It helped give us a chance to rebuild our connections with our team in preparation for the real GOld expedition. We got to learnt really good survival tricks such as water collection and purification and cooking our own food. I think it helped build the valuable skills we’ll need later in the year. The most challenging thing was probably getting some sleep whilst camping and maybe the large climbs up the hills and mountains but apart from that we were all there for each other, to help each other on, so it wasn’t too difficult.”
The three teams planned and completed difficult routes and are all now looking forward to their assessment in the Lake District next academic year.
Take the next step by selecting an option below, or if you want to drop us a quick message, you can do so with the form.
Δ