Return to Eryri (Copy)

by Jonathan van Geuns, June 6, 2025

2018: The Inaugural Year

You rarely grasp the scale of the story you’ve stepped into until much later. Like the hobbits setting out from the Shire, it begins as something intimate, quaint; just a hard run in a wild place. You pack your gear like its second breakfasts: a touch too much, too heavy, a touch too hopeful. Embarking on my first 100-miler with only a few months of training was audacious, and likely a form of quiet arrogance. I stood at the starting line, naively confident. Eryri, indifferent to my inexperience, unaware of the shape of the trial ahead, ready to test my mettle.

The race began as the heavens opened, baptizing us in a slow downpour with an old, familiar grace, surprising no one. As though the land itself were welcoming us in its native tongue. The Welsh language has no single word for “good weather,” but there are dozens for rain, for mist, for the many moods of cloud. You could feel the collective sigh before the gun went off. The only time I’d been here before was during the grim winter months. The rain felt soothing.

Eryri is a land shaped by water. It is one of the wettest places in the UK, with nearly 180 inches of annual rainfall, more than double Seattle’s tally. Crib Goch, the notorious ridge, a few kilometers from the start line, holds the national record. The sky in here is rarely still. Clouds roll through like freight trains. Mist clings to the slopes like breath on glass. Sleet arrives uninvited. Rain is the house guest that never leaves. Sun, when it appears, is a blessing. You don’t train for the weather here. You make peace with it.

Back then, I charged every course from the outset. I didn’t understand pacing. Effort was pretty much the only lever that mattered. So I surged up Yr Wyddfa, Welsh for Snowdon, in third. It rises 1,085 meters, from sea level. The Llanberis Path is deceptive, as it is not technical, and mostly gradual. It can hit hard when your ego hasn’t checked itself. Same for the Pyg Track, which I attacked borderline reckless. Still, I was passed by a seasoned, Fremen-like, mountain-born. The descent is exposed, technical, and sharp, like many in Eryri. Like a young off-worlder stepping into the sands without learning the desert’s rhythm, I moved, relying on luck over technique. If I’d fallen, I would’ve gone a long way. But I didn’t.

In the winter before their historic Everest ascent, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay trained nearby, using the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel as their base. On the icy slopes of Yr Wyddfa and the Glyderau, they tested gear, practiced climbs, and readied themselves with wool, grit, and silence. The hotel still stands today, with their names scrawled on the dining room ceiling; ghosts of ambition and humility etched into the wood, reminders that even the world’s highest dreams can begin in the wet winds of Wales.

Dolwyddelan came just before the dusk swallowed the last colors from the trail. One runner slid by; another, drifted in the opposite direction, looking empty, spent by effort he’d borrowed too early. I crossed with Marcis Gubats, the calm Latvian, and previous Lakeland 100 runner-up (behind Mike himself). I hadn’t expected to see him then, departing as I arrived. A missed turn had forced him to double back (he would go on to win the race). The guys in 2nd and 3rd did not. For a breathless moment, I wondered: would it matter? Would the missed stop catch them out? Was I, now, in second?

I reached Dolwyddelan before the light gave out. A runner slipped past me; another, drifting in the opposite direction, looked emptied, spent by effort he’d borrowed too early. I crossed with Marcis Gubats, the calm Latvian, and previous Lakeland 100 runner-up (behind Mike himself). I was surprised to see him leaving the aid station just as I got there. He’d missed the turn, and had to double back. The guys in second and third did not. For a moment, I wondered: would it matter? Would the missed stop catch them out? Was I, now, in second? Was I competing now?

As the trail bent toward Capel Curig, the forest grew thicker toward, and the clear smell of the earth breathing up its rot. The deep, loamy musk of humus and decay. Fungi clung to every surface: fly agaric, bright and angry in the moss; birch polypore, pale as old skin; and mycena, trembling like something half-alive. Even the living trees bore them. Nothing wasted here.

Capel Curig lies in the heart of everything and nowhere. A village that behaves like a trailhead, a junction more than a destination. But it’s been a center of outdoor life in Eryri for decades. The Plas y Brenin National Outdoor Centre is here; the UK’s leading training ground for mountain leaders, climbers, and winter survival experts. That heritage adds a quiet gravity to the place.

The path continues while the forest gave way to ruin, bruised earth, the felled trees and forgotten, leaving stumps like the bones of something older. Nearing the Llyn Cowlyd reservoir, through fields of heather, I veered off course and found myself chest-deep in cold black bog (I’m 6’3” or 190 cm). There was no panic, just half a laugh, half in disbelief. Past the dam, besides a concrete shelter, a single volunteer stood with a few jugs of water, and modest offerings. It wasn’t an aid station so much as a quiet proof that someone remembered we’d be coming through. With the cold and wind setting in, not a place to linger. I probably should have.

Eryri doesn’t feel like untouched nature. Eryri bears the weight of ages. Eryri is a land sung into being and scarred by its stewards, where the wind carries the sorrow of slate quarried and forests felled. The hills aren’t shy about what they’ve been through; used, discarded, and allowed to regrow on its own terms. Marked by hands now gone and wounds now mossed over. You see it in the stone husks of engine houses, in the slate fences zigzagging over ridgelines, in the flat-topped mounds of waste rock that have become accidental cairns. All here is aftermath, the remaining trees are second-generation. Run long enough here and you start to understand this isn’t mere ruin nor wilderness, it’s memory.

The Carneddau, the Cairns, is a series of peaks both majestic and merciless. A vast, brooding spine of some long-slain giant, stonebound and slumbering in north Wales. With its six-seven summits, is a relentless test of endurance. Few outside Cymru know their names, but they should. They’re massive, open, exposed. Flat boulder-strewn plateaus. Treeless, bare, elemental, they stretch in long, unforgiving windswept halls of stone and sky. Each summit has its own voice and demands its own negotiation, like the sketchy scrambles of Craig yr Ysfa. There’s often no trail to follow, just intuition and the occasional cairn.

They rise like Tolkien’s Misty Mountains, silent witnesses to old wars and older weathers, their peaks unreadable except by those who have bled upon them. I reach for Tolkien because his landscapes speak the same language. Most of Eryri remind of the ancient burial grounds in the North Kingdom, known for their hills bereft of trees, and barrows that hold the remains of Dúnedain men. In Eryri, there are no kings, just cairns. But the feeling is the same.

An outcast, Pen Llithrig y Wrach, part only of the inaugural edition, felt spiteful in its obscurity, and cruel as its name, the “slippery peak of the witch.” Just sodden, slippery grass, and slanted slithering gradient that leans directly against you. A fellow runner and I lost the line, the hillside offering no hint of correction until a trio of runners with steadier feet set us right. Climbing the Marilyns in daylight during the recce was one thing; to face it at night, with rain turning to sleet, slicing sideways through the dark, and the cold as a a constant companion, this was something else.

There’s a trick Eryri plays on your perception of distance. The mountains do not tower as tall as those in the Alps or the Rockies, but they feel taller. Their posture, an angle of approach, the lack of trees, the constantly shifting weather, that makes each peak seem farther. False summits abound. You crest, thinking the summit near, only to find another beyond it, just the herald of another. That disorientation is part of the challenge.

I ran out of water before reaching Carnedd Llwellyn, Cymru’s second-highest throne of stone. I’d counted the sips, but over six hours on this section required more than the two bottles I had on me. I thought of those still behind me, stretched thin by time and terrain, perhaps with the mercy of daylight but none of ease. On Carnedd Dafydd, I came upon an emergency crew, huddled in a slate-blown shelter, a tent cinched tight against the wind. They saw in my face what I could not voice, and filled one bottle, meant only for the direst need. I continued, took one sip, slipped on a stretch of icy scree, and watched the rest of it pour out onto the rocks.

Welsh, ever attuned to its weather, offers over twenty words for mist and fog. That day I recce’d this stretch, it felt like I passed through all of them. I remember vividly, somewhere between the veils of grey and white, and the scattered debris of the RF511 plane, a figure emerged from the mist. Near, I say, the fog made it so you couldn’t see thirty meters ahead. Atop the ridge a pale silhouette appeared, still as stone. A Carneddau pony. Stocky, weatherworn, short-legged, carved into the land. With calm curiosity it just stood there, gazing me. Judging me? Do you belong here? A poignant reminder of the timelessness of this place.

The Carneddau are Eryri’s quiet giants. They do not rise in spectacle. A continues, rising, relentless unfurling of stone and sky, studded with boulders and wind. On a clear day, one may glimpse the silver curve of the Irish Sea and a faint smudge of Northern Ireland. About 300 semi-feral ponies roam here, older than the oldest tales, maybe since the Bronze Age. Seeing one near a summit feels like stumbling across a secret.

With cold inside my bones, mildly dehydrated, I reached what was not an aid station in the usual sense. I came upon someone’s house, no sigil nor banner of old, but a converted sanctuary offered freely to strangers. They had warmth, soup, and more kindness. I sat there, until I stopped shivering. It took two-three bowls of soup and the promise of sunrise to revive me. My shin pulsed like a drumbeat out of time, swelling quietly, and I wasn’t sure what that meant yet.

Llyn Ogwen rests between the Glyderau and the Carneddau like a sword laid to sleep. Cold and still as a king’s last breath. The path skirts its edge in haste, but the lake lingers, steeped in legend. Some say this is where Arthur cast Excalibur after his final battle. Truth or tale, it’s a place where many memories lay dormant.

The first hints of light gathered at the edges of the sky. Tryfan rose to my right, jagged and improbable; a shark’s tooth lodged in the land, too steep to seem natural, too striking to ignore. Skidding over scree, I was energized by the prospect of seeing the Glyderau in full morning glory. Glyder Fach, Glyder Fawr—gludair, the stone-heaps. Their summits fractured plateaus, slabs thrown skyward, and frozen in collapse, like thrones forged from the swords of vanquished enemies. You don’t run across, you pick your way

Wayfinding in Eryri is to interpret a dialect of stone. You rarely follow a line. You follow intention. Cairns are unofficial, and occasionally misleading. In clear weather, they blend into the landscape. In thick mist, they’re everything. You scan for them like a lost friend in a crowd. In some sections, these stacks of rocks are the only things keeping you from vanishing.

The rocks of Eryri are not simply old. Not romantic, gentle wear of time or worn-down-old, but violent, subducted, re-erupted, tectonic-old. Volcanic ash and lava flows, twisted, pressed, lifted and re-folded, make up much of its craggy heart. The Glyderau especially are a geologist’s field trip gone feral; ridges of shattered rhyolite, tors like remnants of teeth of beasts long slain.

I made it through Devil’s Kitchen or Twll Du. Legend has it the devil cooked his meals in this cauldron of mist. A cleft in the cliffs where weather swirls and echoes. The same haunted narrowing as Cirith Ungol, the dark pass where Frodo meets Shelob. An omen in stone carved by wind and things long buried. The descent is a scramble down slick stone stairs, water running like veins over rock, every step a test of balance.

Below, the valley opens like a scar, leading into one of the lower aid stations, with perfect vegan lasagna. I remember it clearly, not just because it was delicious, but because of the local fellowship who said all the right words I needed to hear, with benediction. They’d seen enough to understand the quiet fray. It’s in these moments that the grassroots heart of the race beats loudest. What glues together the very, living spirit of the sport.

Regardless, my shin began to swell to twice its normal size. What lay ahead, skirting Dinorwig Quarry, and looping back toward Llanberis, was meant to be runnable. It is. I was ninety minutes late meeting Ana, apologizing. I took time to rest and refuel, determined to continue.

Dinorwig and Penrhyn quarries fed the rooftops of the British Empire, once holding over 3,000 workers, exporting slate across the Atlantic and into Europe. You still run through it, the trails bear the imprint of industry, surrounded by piles not left by nature, but by men with calloused hands and short lifespans. The heaps of rock feel orderly and ruined all at once.

Llanberis is the bookend: you start from, or end at, or midway collapse. Once a hub of industry, thunderous with slate wagons, now softened into cafés and trail shops. The cadence of toil remains. You feel it in the brickwork, the pubs, the way the town doesn’t celebrate your effort so much as it nods at it.

The climb up Moel Elio, “The bare hill of Elio,” feels like a merciful reprieve. Its slopes rolled instead of punched. After the chaos of the Carneddau or the upturned world of the Glyders, it’s softened, grassy ascents, were a break for the ankles and lungs. I found a tempo I’d forgotten, managing to run a four-mile stretch, as I confided to the volunteers at the next aid. They returned to me by informing I was in 5th or 6th place, and close to the group ahead. Perplexed, I heard that most runners dropped out. The mountains, it seemed, had claimed its share.

The stretch over Mynydd Mawr passed swiftly. Just weeks earlier, that same hill taunted; its trailhead hidden, tucked away enough for me. I’d wandered through cow-trampled fields, shoes clotted, making endless arcs across pasture fences and bramble thickets before calling it quits. Now, it unfolded without malice. A gentler heather-filled climb, with Craig y Bera emerging sudden, a cliff face flaring out into sky. The descent of mischievous slippery grass, steep enough to ask for your dignity. I answered with practical surrender: on all “threes.” Sliding like a child with no patience for pride.

Some stretches of the trail cut through planted forest; Sitka spruce lined in grim procession. They grow too fast for this soil, too straight for this land. They don’t shelter. No whispering life beneath their boughs. A film set built by someone who’s never been in a forest. It’s beautiful in its alien, geometric ways. But it’s not wild. And the contrast is striking: leave the forest and suddenly you’re back where things decide for themselves how to grow.

Past the shadowed woods of Beddgelert, I glimpsed two crew members lingering for runners just behind me (in not a sanctioned area for support). A flicker of ego stirred, and with it, a pulse of resolve. Yr Wyddfa ahead, once more. This time by the Ranger’s Path. First, a stretch of private land I had overlooked in my recce, not realizing the route would cut across gated land. I had spent too long searching for a path that wasn’t there.

The climb rolls upward with a quiet relentlessness, not cruel, not kind, just steady. Not the steepest way up. I’d come this way enough times to know where the legs begin to warm into it. Rhythm came easier than expected, this far into the race. The wind, mostly hidden here. Higher up, the world starts to fall away behind you. Rocks give way to other rocks. The earth shedding detail until it resembles the surface of another world.

Overhead a peregrine falcon sketched circles into the dusk. I watched it briefly, then moved forward as summit shelter emerged. I paused again, not in struggle, but in reverence for the sun, fat and gold already beginning its descent. I stood like Frodo on Amon Hen, seeing all I had passed through and all I still carried. My Irish companion arrived some minutes later, without needing to say much, we both took it in. A stillness that doesn’t interrupt the race but deepens it.

The highest mountain in Cymru, Yr Wyddfa means “the burial mound” and is said to be the resting place of Rhita Gawr, a giant who collected the beards of defeated kings. Here, Arthur met him in battle, and Arthur slew him atop the peak. The red dragon on the Welsh flag, too, has roots here; tied to a myth where a red dragon fought a white one beneath Dinas Emrys.

The Rhydd Ddu descent always feels long and fast, this time inviting me into a momentum faster than my legs could probably chase. Kevin and I regrouped at the base. We agreed to tackle the next climb together, neither of us knowing exactly what we were walking into. We only knew the dark was coming. What we didn’t know was how vast it would be.

The land here evokes the dread of Emyn Muil, the rugged hills Frodo and Sam navigated after leaving the Fellowship. Similarly, Crib Nantlle does not part easily for runners. It twists inward, gnarled and stern, reshaping direction and distorting distance.

The grassy slope up Y Garn pitched sharply upward, a wall turning shadow as the last of the twilight drained from the moon-less sky. The night folded over completely. The only clues were occasional flickers of light; others, higher, battling something we couldn’t yet name. Between us and them: grass too wet, mud too soft, feet losing memory of grip. Everywhere sheep eyes catching our beams, glowing back at us like quiet omens, unmoving, unblinking.

It’s hard to explain to non-UK runners why so many trails here feel penned in; shoulder-high stone walls, hemming the runner into narrow passageways. The answer traces back to the 18th and 19th centuries Enclosure Acts. Before, land was often common; grazed collectively, walked freely. As agriculture industrialized and landowners consolidated power, these commons were divided, fenced, and walled, often with no regard for ancient paths or animal movement. Walls became boundaries, property lines, symbols of ownership. The paths that remain are narrow corridors of resistance, squeezed between authority and erosion.

Cymru might feel wild and open, but legal access is largely restricted under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. The illusion of freedom, is often just that. Much land remains private, and the public’s “right to roam” is carefully circumscribed. This creates a strange duality: Wales offers a deep sense of connection to its land, while access laws often keep that connection at arm’s length. Unlike Scotland, where access is presumed unless harmful, Wales still functions on a model of limited permission, a patchwork of inherited privilege and piecemeal reform.

Unheralded, unsought by the peak-bagging masses; Nantlle ridge, a sawtooth a 9-kilometer arc of high ground offers solitude, drama, and an elemental intimacy. The silhouette strings together six or seven summits, with cliffs that drop abruptly into silence, and views that stretch to the sea. Everything loses its grip here. GPS time doesn’t quite make sense. A single league might consume the better part of half a day. Every so often, you’ll see a faint thread in the grass; desire lines, similar to almost invisible trails (as left by the Elves of Mirkwood). Routes worn by memory. They curve slightly away from signed trail, shaving off gradient or avoiding a waterlogged patch..

Mynydd Drws-y-Coed rises like a blade; narrow, serrated, and unapologetic. Its name, Mountain of the Door of the Trees, speaks to a past landscape long vanished. Only wind, rock, and a door that swings open to those willing to scramble across its exposed spine. At 695 meters, it lacks the altitude of giants, but it commands a reverence that belies its height, and makes you earn the right to continue downwards.

Between its rugged slopes lie the remnants of the Drws-y-Coed copper mines, etched into the mountain’s very bones since at least the 13th century. Miners once delved deep into the earth here, veins bearing only it scars now: collapsed adits, spoil heaps, and remnants of machinery. Like the halls of Moria, it is not the absence of life that haunts, but the echo of what was taken. Not untouched, but touched hard, worked deep, like Khazad-dûm, and left to grow back in its own way. These trails don’t feel ancient, they feel post-industrial.

And yet the mountain holds older secrets still. Near its base, archaeologists have uncovered the remains of Iron Age hut circles, their foundations whispering of lives within this formidable landscape. These dwellings, dating from around 800 BC to AD 400, suggest a community that farmed, herded, and worshipped under the shadow of the ridge. Their presence adds even more depth, a reminder that human connection to this place spans millennia.

The land grew dreamlike. The hour grew shapeless in slow motion: I remember only the hollow sloshing of our footsteps, and a black maw of the mine besides me. Behind three headlamps emerged, ghostlike in their passing. Wedged between, a grim opening, similar to the Dwimorberg’s Paths of the Dead, a perilous haunted route used by Aragorn to summon the Dead Men of Dunharrow. The climbs behind us, the descents ahead, both endless, though neither truly long. Finally, without warning, we tipped over the crown of Moel Hebog. Taking our turns slipping, with brief skids, muttered checks of “I’m fine” like prayer between strangers.

It felt as though we had been swallowed and spit out by the mountain. Forever chewing. The dark began to bleed into blue, there we were, in Beddgelert. We didn’t arrive, we reappeared, As if the race had folded in on itself and dropped us back at our own shadow. Nightfall here isn’t just a dimming. It’s an erasure. Perspective flattens. Your world shrinks to the beam of your headlamp. The second night peels more than something. It hollows you. By dawn, when the first gold cuts through, you feel like you are coming up for air.

There are places where the wind dies and rock rises steep on either side, and you feel unmistakably being watched. Not by people, nor by sheep. By the land itself. Not hostile, nor benevolent. The Welsh have words for this, like “awyrgylch”. The mountain sees you. Not cheering, nor judging. It won’t remember you, it just marks your passing.

The Beddgelert aid station offered a brief exhale as relief turned quickly to haste when volunteers warned us we had about four hours to make the next cut-off. It didn’t add up. The fastest known time for it by a previous runner was also about 4 hours. Without lingering, we pressed on. The trail traced the river at first; a reprieve from vertigo. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt a stretch of even ground. A short road lifted our spirits. The tarmac screaming “Araf” in painted white: slow down. We were beyond that now.

We climbed hard toward Cnicht. The effort was laudable, but the climb itself was no longer the antagonist it might have been earlier. We moved well. Route-finding, which had taxed our minds for hours, now felt more fluent. Known as the Welsh Matterhorn for its sharp, triangular profile, Cnicht’s sharp spine and knightly name mark it among the noble heights of Eryri. We arrived at the Nant Gwynant café within 3.5 hours.

They stand like relics. Weathered and wordless. You’ll see more sheep than humans in these hills. Welsh Mountain Sheep, mostly. They outnumber people by laughable margins. They don’t bother with switchbacks or signage. They don’t flinch when you pass. They don’t blink at weather. They’re indifferent to your suffering. They move when they have to, and that’s it. If you make eye contact, you’ll see nothing anthropomorphic. They’ve endured more storms than you’ve trained through. Their ancestors watched these trails form. You’re not impressing them.

We were back on schedule, with Yr Wyddfa twice more: first via the jagged path of Watkin, and after descending half way, a final reckoning via the Miners’ Track. Kevin and I moved without urgency, letting the calm of the day carry us. That quiet dissolved when three runners reappeared and passed us on the descent. My shin screamed with every step down, every footfall slicing like a wire drawn tight. Kevin gave chase without warning. We made a pact to finish together, pulling each other through earlier lows, rallied each other. I was stunned, angry. It took a few minutes to stitch that rupture into something I could carry. By the time I rolled into the checkpoint, the trio was there, Kevin was gone.

I downed a Coke, and in resolve left before the others did. Only thirteen remained in the race, and I wasn’t going to finish last, with a top ten in reach. The last climb teemed with Sunday hikers: sunburnt teenagers in cotton, retirees with poles. I must’ve looked feral, hollow-eyed, salt-crusted, limping through the crowds like a shadow on a mission. From time to time, I dared a glance back. The trio still behind, but fading. By the final switchback, they were dots, if that were them indeed. They had given up the chase. The descent into Llanberis should have felt triumphant. In truth, it was a grim negotiation with pain. I ran stopping only when the stabbing became too sharp to breathe through. I’d nearly caught Kevin but that no longer mattered.

Just like that, it was done. No arch, no timing mat, no buckle, no medal. Just a warm welcome at The Heights. Ana there, Mike too, and volunteers I recognized from earlier. Words fail at the finish of something like this. I recall only a quick bite, half a pint, and a winding bus ride where I passed out instantly, undisturbed by the switchbacks. A missed train connection, ended the day in an hotel in Chester, and hunger that returned with vengeance.

2023: My resolve

I returned to UTS twice more before the story picked up again with real weight. The second time, I was cut short—50 kilometers in—when my body issued a blunt refusal. My mother was waiting for me then, now waiting somewhere else. Some lessons come in silence, in the space after surrender. The third attempt was quieter still. Mid-pandemic, no race bib, no aid, no crowds. Neither outing carved itself as deeply as that first crossing, nor as sharply as the fourth, which deserves its own telling. That final chapter, years later, wasn’t just a return Eryri, but a return to myself, and to what had become of the race..

Crossing back over the Atlantic took more than shedding time zones. Living in Canada, with a different backdrop, and a different rhythm to my days, returning to Llanberis meant more than boarding a plane, and familiar trains and buses up through North Wales. It meant retracing something older in me. This time I would shared a place with my Canadian friends Adam and Kelsey. They’d flown over to chase their own arcs on this course (Kelsey, in her typically casual brilliance, would go on to place fifth in the 100k).

It wasn’t meant to be the marquee of the year; Swiss Peaks held that title. But I arrived in Llanberis sharp, after long, arduous weeks of mountain training in British Columbian winter, firmed by the steady mind of my coach Nickademus. Unlike that wide-eyed attempt years ago, I didn’t come here to prove I could survive it. I wanted to see how far I’d grown inside the same bones of the course; to hold the present against the shadows of who I’d been.

The race began midday, beneath a sky that felt surprisingly generous; sun-warmed, winds hushed, and clouds holding their breath. I didn’t chase the front this time. That was not my spiel anymore. I watched 50 or so bolt up the road passing Dolbadarn Castle. I stayed quiet in my stride. The opening part up Llanberis path can devour early bravado. I moved with calm intent, passing those whose fire flared too fast, whose breath gave out before the mountain even asked much of them.

At Bwlch Glas, the landscape unfurled like a familiar song. The Pyg Track welcomed me back like an a chorus I knew by heart. I leaned into the descent as if I’d been here just last weekend, not years prior. There’s a peculiar joy in rediscovering a place through muscle memory. My legs remembered before I did. Eryri once as my second home, I now had countless ascents up Yr Wyddfa. This was the mountain of my becoming. Trails once stitched into BMC maps were still stitched into me. While the course had been reversed, rerouted every year, my body still knew which way each arête leaned. Somehow, the place still knew me. I loved it for that.

Long before feet pounded these paths in pursuit of finish lines, before miners quarried the stone, there was wool. Hill farming sustained Eryri for centuries. Sheep were not adornment; they were survival. Their fleece was warmth, wealth, and wholesome. Valleys echoed with the clack of handlooms. You still see the legacy in stone-walled sheepfolds crumbling, in the sagging barns, in the quiet stubbornness of everything that still endures.

At Pen y Pass, the course diverged sharply from the old script, cutting straight up the spine of Glyder Fach, with short switchbacks. My legs felt light, and patient with urgency that isn’t desperation. I passed half a dozen runners without needing to press, and topped out breathing deep and grateful. But the mountain, in its way, reminded me not to mistake flow for invincibility. I caught a toe and launched into a full Superman dive across the rocks. Just a scrape of embarrassment. A little wink from Eryri to keep your head cool. The trail down was scree and slab, the kind of surface I used to tiptoe down. Now part of my favorite terrain, so I opened up, skirting the rim of Cwm Idwal.

You pass Cwm Idwal the way you pass a monument. More than a glacial valley, it a chapter in the Earth’s autobiography. The first place in the UK where someone formally recognized glacial erosion. The likes of Darwin and Kingsley recognized the vast bowl, gouged and sculpted by ancient ice.

Tryfan rose to my left this time, still a mere extra in this showing, its rocky face catching the afternoon light. The weather held up nicely: dry underfoot, still air, sky flung open. My legs, too, seemed to hold back. I passed more runners, another runner from the lowlands, Daan Nieuwenhuis. One of the central players in this narrative, Bjarte Wetteland joined, as we passed Rhiwiau Caws. Not long before the Glen Dena aid station, I passed another protagonist who’d shaped my race’s arc: American legend Sabrina Stanley.

Wales is the land of y ddraig goch, the red dragon. Not just emblazoned on the flag, but also etched into the terrain. This isn’t myth layered on top of geography; it’s myth emerging from it. The land was shaped by volcanic ash, tectonic shifts, glaciers carving out ridges. Dragons are how people once explained a world that cracked and burned and kept shifting underfoot. They don’t perch above the peaks; they are the peaks. The coils of a ridgeline. The sudden snarl of weather. You don’t need to believe in dragons to see one here.

The Carneddau appeared in its glowy glory. A reacquaintance with the ancient spine of upland mass and memory. I no longer held fear or hesitation these summits once summoned. I welcomed them. Pen yr Ole Wen rose steep but familiar, and I climbed it cleanly, cresting as Ian Corless appeared, camera waiting for Sabrina’s approach. She ran smart, steady, and in the end, she’d take second. That’s how. Along the long folds, runners began to sharpen into focus; more bodies turning real and reachable. The sun edged lower, and scrambling while the light still lingered made all the difference.

The final climb had been axed, replaced by a smoother descent from Pen yr Helgi Du into the aid station. I moved with a twinge of loss. The Carneddau, once a proud multi-peaked ridge, had been trimmed down year by year. To date, it has been cut nearly in half, to almost an ordinary other hill, with a few false summits. It’s character, and a lot of the grit, had gone with it. In 2023, I wasn’t in a mood to lament. I kept moving well along the reservoir, into the section that once broke me. It was perhaps the first times I truly lead. We past a couple runners, and dropped another sponsored athlete who’d faded behind. And another two hobbling figures near Capel Curig. Fifty kilometers in, headlamps out, I was exactly where I needed to be: on time, on effort..

In a land long acquainted with defiance, Eryri is more than mere high ground. At the heart of the Welsh language revival, the land speaks in syllables English once tried to silence. Efforts to restore original Cymru names are part of a broader movement to reclaim identity and heritage. This act of renaming is not merely symbolic; it’s a reclamation of history and a step toward honoring true narratives of the land. The cadence of the Welsh mimics the terrain: soft rises, sudden consonant stops, long vowels like open valleys. As if you’re running through poems.

The course now climbed Moel Siabod, ascending its gentler side. Moel Siabod rises alone, slightly detached from the rest of Eryri’s more famous giants. Because of that, it offers one of the finest panoramic views. From its summit, you can see the horseshoe of Yr Wyddfa, and the Carneddau sprawled to the north. But only when the skies allow it. Tonight it was cloaked in darkness, and in its stillness a keeper of perspective. On the technical Daear Ddu ridge descent, we caught a trio with Anna Carlsson and Alex Homei, threading through the scattered boulders, requiring full attention. With no hesitation I found a rhythm, an amusing, unhinged boulder-hop ballet, and a distraction from the usual playground. Though I suspect many runners were glad to see it end.

From Dolwyddelan up toward Moel Bowydd, the road turned to mire as we crossed the Moelwynion. Into a vague geography that seems but a placeholder of grassy slopes and bogs. No vistas. No clear trail, mere churned grass and flags that offered little more than suggestion. Our headlamps lit the way for others while we saw none ahead. We spent too long scanning and second-guessing, like Frodo and Sam lost in the Dead Marshes. It’s still is on the latest route, and I still don’t understand why. In the murk, Sabrina appeared, while Bjarte eased off. We passed one of the great slate quarries—maybe Bowydd, Votty—but the dark kept most of it hidden. One of the many ghosted wounds on this land, adding a layer of historical intrigue. Blaenau Ffestiniog blinked into view, and we decided, without deciding, to stick together. Some misery is more fun in pairs. I found rhythm on the climbs, Sabrina found strength on the flats, a shared motion, as tide and moon carrying two boats side by side.

Long before carbon poles and carbon-plated padding, there were men who moved through these hills in wooden clogs or hobnail boots. Made for durability. Sometimes dragging slate carts with their backs. You feel the absurdity. Some quarrymen even worked barefoot, looking for more grip on scree, while the quarries were known for their hot and damp conditions.

A climbed over Moelwyn Mawr, the “Great White Hill”, ushered us toward Croesor. Another long, feral ridge of heather, rock, and bog. Not mighty in stature but cunning in form: three false crests, each pretending to be the last, before revealing another. Moelwyn Mawr feels remote even when you’re not alone. Sabrina drifted back to tend her own rhythm; I kept mine feeling oddly serene. The night was clean and kind, the moon overhead a watchful lantern. The descent was its own riddle. I saw the valley I sought, could see the shape of trail far below, but the way down had vanished. A mere flag lay ruined, like a banner after siege, and a high wall to traverse first. Long lost in existential spirals. Eventually, I climbed the wall, found another reflector, and stumbled back on course. Sabrina reappeared, also confused, but calm.

Cnicht rose next, just as the sky began to bloom with dawn. Sabrina and I drifted apart again, each taking our own tempo. On the ridge the course slipped out from under me, again. This time in daylight. I’d veered just below the proper trail, following another rogue flag, a different trail, out of sync with the one above. When I realized, several minutes in, I stopped to weigh my options: up and over the crest to investigate, or backtrack to known ground? I chose the latter, paying the cost of losing another 15 minutes. I should’ve crested. Again, Sabrina rejoined me, and we continued leaping bogs and puddles. More than once, we sank waist-deep into the sodden earth. Luckily, no “dead things, dead faces in the water” here.

Gwastadannas Farm came as the sun began to press down in earnest, settling heavy on our shoulders. Nestled in the upper reaches of Nant Gwynant, a symbolic waypoint, where toil meets terrain, and the stewardship of land brushed up against modern pilgrimage of endurance. Tracing the flanks of Yr Wyddfa, beneath tree-filtered light, the ground had been pummeled by previous runners. Samwise would’ve pointed out: “Good tilled land, Mr. Frodo. That’s what keeps the world going.” I’d surged ahead at first, made a short detour, while Sabrina found another gear. Steadily, relentless, I labored behind. It wasn’t until we reached the sounds of the Afon Glaslyn river, marching through the valley, that I began to feel good again.

Before tourism, before running, before even slate, there was wool. Hill farming sustained North Eryri for centuries. Sheep were not just livestock but livelihood, currency, insulation, and identity. Wool meant survival. Entire valleys echoed with the clack of handlooms. You still see the legacy in stone-walled sheepfolds crumbling, in barns roofed in corrugated iron, in the quiet stubbornness of everything that still endures.

Leaving Beddgelert, the infamous Nantlle loomed like a jagged memory I’d come to rewrite. Last time, it had taken something. This time, I wanted to meet it on my terms. I warned Sabrina what to expect; each deceptive peak promising to be the last. Knowing helped, I think. She took it in stride, and we kept a firm rhythm. Tired, of course, but intact. The things expectations do to you. Sabrina commented it was the hardest thing she’d done; harder than the Hardrock course record, or the Nolan’s 14 FKT. At Rhydd Ddu, we finally found others who had not fared so well. Hollow-eyed, one blinking into the void, one ready to quit. I told them the worst had passed. Whether they believed me didn’t matter.

Turns out, I was more hollow than I let on. The climb up Yr Wyddfa from this side is long but rarely intimidating. Except when it’s 34 degrees Celsius, while the air doesn’t move here. Sabrina launched surged upward like Éowyn unflinching on the battlefield. I followed, slower, watching her grow smaller. The last of the 25k runners were descending. I had to sit for a moment, out of water already, and there was still a thousand feet left to go.

Then came the surge: a flood of 50k runners ascending the Watkin Path, stringing up the trail in a slow, panting line. Solitude gave way to chaos, congestion. It didn’t lift me, but it kept my mind from sinking. I moved into passing mode. Threading between bodies, stepping off trail when needed, whispering “On your left. Careful here. Thank you.” It was slow work, dodging along technical rock, waiting to squeeze through gaps. Sketchy. We’d already run 140 kilometers. This wasn’t the time to scramble for space. A casualty of a bloated course. At the summit, the shelter was closed. I had hoped for something, anything. Down the Ranger Path I turned with dry flasks and a growing urgency. I stuck to the course while others snuck along the easier train tracks. I flowed downhill with cautious speed, pausing only to gulp from a shallow stream.

At the massive aid station below, lines snaked out, dozens queued to refill. I waited too, for a few minutes. Then decided to cut in. I was still racing for a top ten. People nodded understanding. The shift was clear, after 15 hours of VIP treatment, I had gone invisible. The climb up Mynydd Mawr was short, steep, and brutal on weary legs. I bore no staff, my poles had long since splintered. Still, I moved better than most, some startled by my bib. It’s a strange dissonance: to be so deep into something, only to be surrounded by fresh legs and fresh complaints. No disrespect to anyone, it’s just a jarring collision of different stories.

Leaving the final aid station in Betws Garmon, I wolfed down a lembas-like sandwich while chatting with another runner. As I jogged off, he stared like I’d grown a second head. “We’re still running?” “Aye,” I replied. “Apparently.” Moel Elio, easy on a normal day, with its three humps. I could see the sigh ripple through each runner behind me at the sight of next hill. A cramped-up elderly man cried as he tried to climb the laddered fence, but moved aside as I approached. The descent into Llanberis should’ve felt like celebration. It hardly did. But I ran it all the same.

No one looked up when I finished. Two 50k runners had their moment, cheered, photographed, congratulated, while I slipped past without a ripple. With my hands before my eyes, I passed the line quietly. That quiet suited me. I’d finished fifteen hours faster than my first time around. The gaps were mine to measure: between then and now, between start and finish, between what the land demanded and what I had to give. I knew where I’d been. The companions found and lost again. I didn’t need a finish line to mark the passage. Eryri had done that.

2025: Of What Was, and Is No More