The Carneddau (lit. "the cairns"; Carneddau is a Welsh plural form, and is sometimes anglicised to Carnedds) are a group of mountains in Snowdonia, Wales. They include the largest contiguous areas of high ground (over 2,500 or 3,000 feet (910 m) high) in Wales and England, as well as six or seven of the highest peaks in the country—the Fourteen Peaks. The range also encloses a number of lakes such as Llyn Cowlyd and Llyn Eigiau, and the Aber Falls waterfalls. It is delimited by the Irish Sea to the north, the Conwy valley to the east, and by the A5 road from Betws-y-Coed to Bethesda to the south and west. The area covers nearly 200 square kilometres, about 10% of the area of Snowdonia.
This was a World Challenge training weekend with a group of 16 students from my school. Group was all female aged between 15 to 18. Very few of the students had experience in the mountains before this walk so the group was very inexperienced. The group are going to India/Himalaya for a trekking expedition in 2019 so the aim of this weekend was to introduce them to walking in mountainous terrain. This was a relatively short route but involved many stops for training and also to support one student who was struggling through illness. My role in this group was as an assistant leader and this involved working in support of the World Challenge leader; this was especially important in guiding the group up the narrow ridge up to the peak of Pen yr Helgi Du.
