Copa i Gopa - Summit to Summit

My daughter, Abi, and wife, Ali, completed their latest sponsored mountain challenge during the ‘great heatwave of 2009’. The task being taken on was to reach the high points of the 22 modern counties / unitary authorities of Wales inside 5 days. As far as we were aware this list had not been tackled before, and as some of the new counties are rather arbitrary, some wonderfully obscure locations were visited.

The start was at 6am on 29th June, tackling the highest point of the Preselis in Pembrokeshire. By the end of the day 9 summits had been reached, moving from west to east across South Wales. There was a lot of driving as well as walking, and I took on this task (as well as joining the girls on 12 of the tops). The next day we moved a bit further north and to some rather higher summits, such as on the Black Mountain and Brecon Beacons. 6 more high points were completed that day. The third day was extremely hot as we moved across Plynlimon, two summits in the Berwyn, Moel Famau, and finally Holyhead Mountain in the dusk. That left the two highest to complete on day 4, Carnedd Llewelyn and Snowdon.

These efforts have raised about £2500, the majority of which is being used to put solar panels on the childrens’ crisis centre of the Children of Tien Shan in Kyrgyzstan.

Although our days of walking and driving were long and hard, we had a great time together. Moving from one summit to another across Wales gives one a wonderful overview of the land.

Our thanks to Dick and Gladys Funnell of Cilgerran and Martin and Sue of the Wyeknotstop Café in Llyswen for their hospitality during our travels.