Paddy Buckley Round Report - 19.04.25
- Brett Mahoney
- Apr 21, 2025
- 11 min read
Updated: Apr 22, 2025
Completers: Brett Mahoney & Tim Woodier
Date of completion: 19/04/25
Time: 24:45:19
Distance: 109km
Elevation: 9,427m
Strava Link: https://strava.app.link/JOBgoghMLSb
The Paddy Buckley Round is more than just a running challenge. Fitness alone is unlikely to get you to a successful completion. It requires mountain craft, navigation skills and the ability to adapt quickly to changing conditions. You also have the small task of navigating more than the height of Everest in ascent and descent in a day, while bog hopping and scrambling!
It has been given the reputation of being somewhat harder than it's more famous Lake District equivalent - The Bob Graham Round, and for good reason.
Of the 47 summits, around 25 of them are tops away from the main honeypot areas of Eryri. This means that they are quiet, beautiful and remote but also, pathless for the most part. So you'll need to get your map geek on if you are considering an attempt! This of course, is exactly why the round resonated with me in the first place.
I made my first trip to North Wales as a young adult with friends to climb Yr Wyddfa. It was more of a footnote to a drinking holiday. I vividly remember driving through Eryri staring up at the mountains completely struck by the ruggedness, beauty and vastness of the place.
From that moment on, my desire to go on wholesome adventures and explore the mountains has taken me from being an overweight fair weather walker, to a mediocre climber and slightly obsessed "linker upper" of mountains on foot.
As luck would have it, it turns out that there's a whole community of people on my front door who find fun and peace from running in the hills as well. Joining Mynydd Du Fell Running Club 5 years ago, confirmed for me that going on adventures isn't just for kids, students on gap yaarr and the rich. You can squeeze an adventure in after a day of work and cooking the kids tea. And right on your own doorstep! - albeit with less gondolas, aperol spritz and entitlement.
I met Tim through the fell club and over time we have become a bit of a dynamic duo when it comes to these sorts of adventures. In the last couple of years we have made a winter and summer completion and FKT (fastest known time) of Rownd Mynydd Du - Black Mountains Round and a winter FKT of the South Wales Traverse.
Rownd Mynydd Du - https://www.mynydd-du.org/rownd-mynydd-du
South Wales Traverse - https://sites.google.com/view/swtraverse/
My uncle Gwyn kindly offered to provide road support on our South Wales Traverse and after getting the bug for crew life, offered to do the same for our Paddy Buckley attempt. Only on the basis that I took him up his favourite mountain Tryfan, of course.
In January 2025 after a very short illness, Gwyn passed away leaving a monumental hole in the lives of everyone that knew him.
Completing the round then took on an even higher meaning for me. Not only would I be linking up all of the places I've loved exploring throughout my adult life, it would be a remembrance lap for an inspirational man who had that same love of North Wales and adventure. I packed a photo of Gwyn, his compass and emergency whistle in my kit to take with me.
There was also a feeling of coming back to finish what I started (I first attempted the Paddy Buckley in 2022 - report here: https://brettpetermahoney.wixsite.com/brettsbim/post/paddy-buckley-round-attempt-report-17-04-2022 ).
Training in the lead up to the Paddy was much more focused on becoming a better mountain athlete, with a lot less junk miles to make up volume than on previous adventures. My friend and coach Bethan Logan worked with me to create a tailored plan that would not only get me in shape for success on the Paddy, but set me up for a solid 2025 season of mountain running at a variety of distances.
After a solid training block it was time to taper. The taper tantrums are a real thing, and something that I still haven't mastered the art of navigating effectively.
For the best part of two weeks leading up to the day, I felt fat and lethargic from the drop in training. I wasn't able to focus on anything apart from weather apps, the carbohydrate content of sugary snacks and of course a favourite past time of mine - scouring over maps.
The weekend finally came and on the Friday afternoon, I picked Tim up, followed by coach Bethan who very generously gave up her weekend to step into the big boots of Gwyn as chief road support. We arrived at Plas y Brenin in the rain and spent the evening checking weather forecasts and route choice obsessively. The evening before any big adventure is always such a strange emotional experience for me - a mixture of nerves, excitement, doubt, confidence and anticipation.
The forecast was for rain and clag throughout the morning, followed by a dry spell, with 50mph winds on the tops in the afternoon/night but dropping off into a low wind, sunny Sunday morning. So pack for every eventuality yeah?
We started at 10am, clockwise, from the Joe Brown shop in Capel Curig in a light drizzle. Starting here meant that the first leg would be the Moelwynion leg, the longest of the round with the trickiest navigation and highest concentration of bogs anywhere on the planet.
Tim and I were joined by Mynydd Du club mate Tom and made our way up through forestry and out onto the flanks of our first summit - Moel Siabod.
Annoyingly, my watch won't produce a live tracker link until the activity has started. So the first 1km of the round was spent trying to share the tracking link online while running and not falling over. I remember saying to Tom that Joss Naylor would be turning in his grave seeing someone attempt a big round while arseing about on their phone. Rightly so.
Before we made the top of Siabod, less than 5km into the round, Tim's brand new poles broke, meaning he would continue on for the rest of the day without their assistance.
Thankfully the rain didn't come to much more than the odd light shower, visibility was good, but the wind was very high in exposed places. The col between Moelwyn Bach and Moelwyn Mawr easily had wind speeds of 50mph, making movement challenging.
For the 16 summits we went to on the first leg, we experienced twice as many bogs, with both myself and Tim finding a waist deep plunge pool the hard way on different occasions.
Some of the tops on this leg are small ring contours meaning navigation can be tricky. Even though we didn't always get the perfect lines on and off of these tops, we were decisive and cracked on meaning we came into Aberglaslyn 20 minutes ahead of schedule in 6 hours 10 minutes.
After an 8 minute pit stop to restock nutrition at Aberglaslyn, we said goodbye to Tom and were off on leg 2 being paced by Gonks and Chris of Hebog Fell Club - the locals with ninja knowledge of the area.
The weather remained dry with good visibility, but the strong winds continued to persist in exposed places. Gonks has perfected the art of being a professional mountain round pacer. Not only did he have perfect lines through the heather and rocks, he got us to each summit on this leg precisely on schedule, taking my poles off me every time I didn't need them to save time on stashing them away again.
Being able to switch off on navigation and be guided through the Hebogs leg was invaluable. Not only did it allow me to focus all my efforts on moving forward efficiently, it gave me the opportunity to soak up and appreciate the incredible place we were travelling through. The Hebogs is a real highlight of the round in terms of it's beauty and although one of the shorter legs, is deceivingly challenging.
We made it into Pont Cae Gors bang on schedule and after another quick turn around thanks to the ninja crewing skills of Bethan, we were out on leg 3 heading into the darkness with friend and Hebog Fell Club member Sian, and John from the Lakes as our pacers.
Sian has completed the Paddy herself and John is going to make an attempt a few weeks after ours. John kindly offered to come and pace us while getting an additional recce under his belt and drove down from the Lakes for the occasion.
To the outsider looking in, you would likely assume that the leg that includes the highest point of the round going over Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) would be the hardest. In reality, the navigation is relatively straight forward, the climbs are steady and there are some lovely runnable sections.
Sian flawlessly guided us over Craig Wen and Yr Aran before dropping back to her car, leaving John to support us over Yr Wyddfa and the remaining 6 summits on this leg. As we reached the top of Wales, the clag came in, but the wind was much lower than forecast. As soon as we dropped back below 900m, we were out of the poor visibility and the remainder of leg 3 went by pretty uneventfully.
As we hit the final summit of the leg - Moel Eilio, we were surprised and thankful to see Mynydd Du club mate Dale out in the middle of the night to cheer us on.
Down at the road in Llanberis, we were again bang on schedule and greeted by friends Harri and Amy who were in North Wales on a climbing trip.
Bethan once again got us turned around and back out on the course in under 10 minutes ready to take on the crux of the round - The Glyderau.
Our original pacer Rachel had been unwell in the days leading up to the attempt, so myself and Tim intended on doing the leg alone. We both know the whole round well, so we weren't concerned about navigation. However, the reassurance of having someone keeping an eye on our decision making in technical terrain while sleep deprived, and generally keeping us on task would inevitably be a huge support.
John selflessly offered to carry on through leg 4 with us to support through the remainder of the night.
We set off up the steep ramps through the slate quarries. This ascent feels long at the best of times, but the dark only made it feel longer and harder than ever. I took my poles out, only to break them instantly. No pole Paddy to the end!
The first few summits on the leg went by with no major issues, but as we continued on, things started to go down hill. Sadly figuratively not literally.
John was a huge help in prompting us to eat, helping us with kit and checking in on how we were feeling throughout. By the time we got to Y Garn though, I was completely unable to stomach anything sugary which was basically everything I had with me.
We made a small nav error that was quickly resolved on Glyder Fawr and continued on to scramble to the cantilever on the summit of Glyder Fach.
Thinking I was being clever (I should know this never happens), I figured we could drop low and contour around the rockier ground before hitting the bristly screes descent to bwlch Tryfan and save time. After some faffing we ended up having to head back onto the rockier ground anyway and wasted time.
Bristly screes is a nasty descent on a nice day. The conditions under foot were a lot worse than the last time I was there and with the added 80km+ of distance and 8,000m+ of up and down in my legs and the darkness - this section was actual hell.
The scree slope took us a lot longer than it should have to descend, but we finally made it to the bwlch (saddle) and started the climb Tryfan.
We head upwards, scrambling past and rudely awakening 2 guys bivviying out just shy of the summit.
Right on time, a blood red sunrise lit the Glyderau up while I rummaged through my pack to find Gwyn's picture and asked Tim to take a photo.
It sounds cheesy as shit, but in that moment I felt a deep connection with the mountains, and that I really had taken Gwyn with me on this adventure. I felt overwhelmed with emotion.
2 words instantly sprung to mind - Hiraeth and cynefin.
The irony being that I have only started learning Welsh as an adult. Growing up in South East Wales, sadly our native language is not as prominent.
Hiraeth - A deep longing for something, especially one's home.
Cynefin - "habitat" the place where we feel we belong.
I certainly felt/feel that the Welsh mountains are an extension of my home and where I belong.
We made the descent down the west gully of Tryfan which felt a lot more technical than the last time I had been there. In reality it was probably the fact that my legs were completely shot. I accepted that sub 24 hours wasn't necessarily possible.
We made it to the road in the Ogwen valley where Bethan had made me up a bag of salted nuts, bombay mix and a vegan sausage roll to appease my new pallet that refused anything containing sugar.
Club mate Paul C-D was ready and waiting to see us through the final leg of the Caerneddau and we head straight out.
The sun shone and the mountains were lit up in that special way that only the early morning sun can provide.
As we climbed Pen yr Ole Wen, the 43rd summit of the day, I started reflecting on what Tim and I had achieved thus far. We had both had our low points throughout the round, but our super power seems to be how we keep each other honest.
Paul did an excellent job of keeping us moving and reinforcing the fact that despite the shit show of the Glyderau, we may still be in with a shot of our original sub 24 hour plan.
I asked Tim how many kilometres to the end.
Tim - "9km and we have just over an hour left".
Me - "That's doable! If we push hard we can get it".
Tim - "There's also 450m of ascent still left to go".
From that point on it was clear that sub 24 hours wasn't going to happen. I very quickly made peace with that and decided that the next best thing would be to push on as hard as possible anyway, and finish in the best time that we could.
As we made the final, 47th summit, we were greeted by Bethan, Rachel and a Welsh flag.
We made the final descent off Pen Llithrig y Wrach only to be cheered on by another club mate Joe and his wife Thea.
Tim and I completed the Paddy Buckley Round in a time of 24 hours 45 minutes 19 seconds.
Sitting here feeling pretty broken after another monster day in the mountains, the word that reflects my Paddy experience is gratitude.
Gratitude for being surrounded by so many inspirational people through the Welsh outdoor community (and Lakes John!).
Gratitude for having such an incredible friend and coach in Bethan who supports me in making dreams come true and shares a passion for adventures that add value to life.
Gratitude for having a wife that enables me to follow my dreams.
Gratitude for having the ability to take my own children on many of these adventures. Only possible because of the mentors I've had in the outdoors.
Gratitude for being a part of such a supportive fell running community in South Wales.
Gratitude for having a friend in Tim who also thinks this sort of thing is acceptable behaviour.
For Gwyn - for legitimising my pursuit of adventure.
Special thanks to:
Bethan Logan, Tom Mollekin, Gonks Hughes, Chris Smith, John Evason, Sian Williams, Paul Colley-Davies, Rachel Tate.
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