Mount Snowdon JST Challenge – A message from the Challenge leader, Graham Strudwick: 

The Mount Snowdon Challenge is a mixed ability, volunteer-led challenge to show more people how well this works on our amazing ship Tenacious. Our purpose is to reach the top of Mount Snowdon (and return!) as part of a mixed ability team that includes two disabled crew members, one of whom uses a wheelchair and the other can walk but needs assistance. We are looking for additional crew members to help us achieve this challenge.

The challenge will the place on the 24th September, however we will all meet on the 23rd at Llanberis. A house has been reserved for the nights of 23rd and 24th September and there is space for 16 people in seven bedrooms (so sharing will be required).

If you would like to join us for this challenge, please read the requirements below and send an email to graham.strudwick@hotmail.com by 19th August setting out your experience and how you meet these requirements. Please also provide a written undertaking to ensure that you will do the necessary training to get fit enough for this challenge. We will review applications and get back to you whether selected or not by 21st August, so you can start your training and planning for the weekend. We do thank all applicants for their time and effort in putting this information together for us.

To all our supporters we would ask that you fundraise for this challenge and spread the word to as many contacts as possible. If you have contacts in any Corporates or organisations that could be approached for funds, please do so to help raise funds as well as spread the word about JST.  

Key requirements for people wanting to be part of the Snowdon challenge support team:

You need to be fit to undertake a long day walking up and down the mountain. The height we will be climbing is over 3200 feet and the ascent is four and a half miles. So, the total walking distance is nine miles on the mountain plus between one and a half and two miles to get to the start and then back to the house.

You should be an experienced hill walker and/or climber who understands the challenge of this climb helping pull a wheelchair up the mountain and acting as a break for the descent. You will share these duties with a support team of ideally 12 people, but it could be 9. This will mean pulling/pushing up hill or breaking down hill for either 15 or 20 minutes each hour that we are on the mountain. Alternatively, you will be helping our second disabled team member achieve this walking with your assistance.

It will be a long day as we will have only about 12 hours between sunrise 7am and sunset 7pm although daylight may be a little longer. There will be an early start at 6am to have breakfast and allow us time to get to the bottom of the climb by 7am. We will want to stay together in one party so we will travel at the pace of the slowest person.

The weather is unpredictable so you will need to have good comfortable walking shoes/boots and a variety of clothing available, including base layers, fleeces, hats, gloves, and waterproof clothing to survive whatever variety of weather we get. We will prepare a more detailed list nearer the time.

If the weather closes in and visibility is limited, we will need to stay close to avoid losing any member of the party. 

We are hoping that one of the team will be a doctor or a medical person who can attend to any incident at the scene whilst we send for assistance as they deem fit.

If you are accepted as part of the team, you should make sure that you do a good amount of training so that you can sustain good progress for the challenging event. We can suggest a variety of exercises to help you achieve this and feel good about your preparation. 

This is a serious challenge but anyone who has sailed with JST will understand our approach, which is to have fun while doing challenging things.

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More information can be found on the Challenge website here.

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Watch Steve Ancsell from ‘Today at Cowes’ interviewing Graham Strudwick about our challenge here.

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If you can’t make the Challenge but would still like to support, you can make a donation on the Team’s online donation page here.