On Friday 19 th September, 15 cadets and 4 staff traveled to the Snowdonia National Park to take part in the Sqn's Snowdon Challenge 2008.

The Sqn was attempting to climb Snowdon in order to raise funds towards the up keep of the Sqn's new mini-bus.

The cadets and staff arrived at the Capel Curig Army camp at around 2230 on the Friday night and all were soon settled into their accommodation. It was an early start on the Saturday morning, and with a good Army breakfast inside all, the challenge started.

The Sqn had decided to walk up the Pyg track and come down on the ranger track so the logistics of getting vehicles into the correct places was a challenge in its self! The climb started in fairly cool cloudy weather, however within an hour the sun had burnt all the cloud away and the views were tremendous as the climb continued upwards.

By around lunchtime, all the cadets and staff were at the top of Snowdon , except Plt Off Jennings who because of a dodgy knee decided he would go up a smaller mountain opposite Snowdon !

After all the pictures were taken at the top, mostly with a party of Royal Marines who were also climbing the mountain, the descent started and all went extremely well. All the cadets were off the mountain by 1600.

There was no let up on the Sunday; Flt Lt Brendan O'Neill, CO 487 Sqn decided everybody needed to go on a map reading exercise, up another mountain. The challenge was to find a small lake and all the three groups managed to get there without any problems.

487 Sqn hope to raise a significant amount of money through sponsorship and it will all go to the mini-bus fund.

Flt Lt O'Neill commented "This has been a great team effort by both the staff and cadets. All the staff played a part in organizing the event, particularly in completing the paperwork for both Wing and organizing the accommodation at Capel Curig. All the cadets coped well and we were very fortunate to have one of the nicest weekends of the year to complete the challenge".