It wasn’t until my late 40’s, that I developed an emotional and physical connection, with the landscape of Wales...

Despite living in Wales for most of my adult life, it wasn’t until my late 40’s, early 50’s that I developed an emotional and physical connection, with the landscape of this beautiful country.

I can’t believe it took me so long to begin to explore the majestic hills and rolling peaks of the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. Nevertheless, after a lung busting introduction to Corn Ddu, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big,….I soon developed an affinity with these Welsh mountains, and found I just couldn’t get enough of them!

Technical rope climbing, really didn’t really appeal to me, but after completing some rudimentary climbing courses at Boulders in Cardiff, it was off on a series of amazing ‘Via Ferrata’?climbing adventures in the spectacular high Tatras in Poland.?‘Via Ferrata’?is a method of mountain ascent, utilising iron chains, steel cables and ladders that are anchored to the mountain.?

Back home in Wales, I set about deepening my appreciation for the Welsh landscape, and at every opportunity, I still spend time exploring this amazing place.

In my younger life, I must admit, I didn’t care too much for Wales. I was convinced that enlightenment, contentment, ‘happiness’ if you like, could only be achieved through foreign travel, by spreading my wings and flying away. My destiny must surely lay, in some far off land, somewhere else….somewhere ‘better’

To quote the great Welshman, Anthony Hopkins’, C.S. Lewis text, in the wonderful movie, Shadowlands…

‘We live in the Shadowlands…The sun in always shining somewhere else..Round a bend in the road… over the brow of a hill’

Once I had discovered the amazing beauty and experienced the humbling connection with your environment that can be gained from spending time in the hills, I discovered that Wales was indeed, intended to be my home after all… ‘The Land of my Fathers (became) dear to me. Home of poets and singers, and people of stature. Her brave warriors, fine patriots, shed their blood for freedom….. Land! Land! I am true to my Land!’?

The Brecon Beacon is littered with historical WW2 era plane wrecks, including Wellington Bombers, Vampire jets and Spitfires. after a little research, and the help of a couple of Ordnance Survey maps, several adventures followed, seeking out and finding, these sobering reminders, of the bravery of those, that made the ultimate sacrifice, to defend the wartime skies over Wales.

The rugged landscape of the Brecon Beacons is synonymous with Military and Special Forces training, and so, eager to take on a challenge, my good friend Mark Taylor and I, signed up for a series of gruelling, civilian versions, of the legendary ‘Fan Dance’ race. These infamous 24k races, are organised by Avalanche Endurance Events and take place in both Summer and Winter. The route is over mountainous terrain, taking in two ascents of Pen y Fan, and re-trace the same steps taken by soldiers taking part in their Special Forces selection process.?

Without wishing to gush or romanticise, our friendship, there is definitely a bond that forges, between people who share the experience, of competitive, physical endurance challenges, and through these shared experiences over the years, Mark and I have become very close. We both derive the same pleasure that come from spending time outdoors, connecting with nature and being at one with the environment.

It was during one of our many treks, that we began to discuss the daft idea, of dragging some of the large props used in our family event hire business, to the tops of some of the Welsh hills. I was interested in seeing the juxtaposition of incongruous items, in the most unlikely of places…..it was an opportunity for some more physical challenges, plus, if the weather was kind, a chance to get some great shots for use in our company marketing!

Christ the Redeemer:?

Twmbarlwm is an Iron Age Hill Fort. At a modest 500m, this seemed the best option, when we considered the best, introductory site, to begin our latest series of adventures!

Scanning our prop warehouse for likely suspects, we decided that a giant statue of Christ the Redeemer would be the best candidate for carrying up Twmbarlwm.?

Although made mostly of fibreglass over a steel frame, the statue is still heavy, and awkward to carry, at around 40kilos.?

In August 2018 we decided to go for the challenge, and before we knew it, Jesus was atop the hillside, with his arms outstretched, extending a blessing over the people of Cwmbran in the valley below.?

Jesus, began to cause quite a stir amongst some amazed walkers that day, who took turns in taking selfies, next to their unlikely companion on the hill.

After we had taken a few pictures ourselves, we picked him back up, reversed our steps back down to the van, and within a few short hours, Jesus’s day out in the hills was over.

Waking up he next day, and to my amazement, I had received a stream of message from both local and National media, keen to hear about just what had happened, and why?

The adventure received some amazing press coverage, around the World, and I ended up being interviewed live on BBC Wales News about the day.

Bolstered by the positivity from the experience, Mark and I decided to plan another adventure. We decided to wait 12 months before attempting a similar challenge, and this time looked toward the more ominous summit of the Sugar Loaf Mountain in Abergavenny.?

The Sugar Loaf is certainly a more imposing summit, at 600m, and with some steep climbing, Mark and I both knew, that dragging a large, heavy prop to the summit of the Sugar Loaf….at our age….would be difficult to say the least!

The Lion King Adventure:?

Whenever Mark and I plan a day in the hills, I’m always imagining we start at around 9.30am. Maybe a leisurely breakfast first, before we lace up our boots and start trekking. With Mark it never happens this way….it’s alway’s 'I’ll pick you up at 4.00am, so we can get to the summit by daybreak!'

I never enjoy dragging myself out of bed in the middle of the night, but as usual, Mark is absolutely right, and by making early starts, in the still morning air, we have enjoyed some amazing sunrises, witnessed spectacular cloud inversions, and on winter mornings, been the first to tread through virgin snow, enjoying expansive vistas, totally alone.

At 5.00am on a chilly August morning in 2019, in the pitch black, with the only light coming from our head torches, we found ourselves at the car park at the foot of the Sugar Loaf, with a full sized Lion Statue, weighing 50 kilos.

We had done a little more preparation for this one, and so the lion was to be strapped to an industrial table trolley, with 6 inch rubber wheels. We figured that we would try and push the lion on the trolley for as far as possible, before the climb became too steep and rocky.?

From that point on, we would abandon the trolley, and have to carry the Lion between us the remainder of the climb, to the summit…hopefully before sunrise.

I’m not sure if was because of a mixture of adrenalin or pure excitement…. (the prospect of two grown men doing something that was essentially quite silly), but I genuinely don’t recall that it was that physically difficult. (Maybe it was because Mark was actually doing most of the work!)

The last couple of hundred meters was certainly awkward, and we were definitely steaming like cattle, by the time we had got the lion to the top, but thanks to Mark’s meticulous timing, we were in position to capture some amazing pictures, as the sun rose.

I did think in terms of media exposure, we had already done a similar thing before with Christ The Redeemer, and so it was unlikely the press would pick up on this story.

To my surprise, as the images began to be shared on social media, of the Lion King’s sunrise adventure on the Sugar Loaf, the interest by the news media became massive!?

Marks amazing photographs began to appear in Newspapers around the World, and were featured in the UK national papers including half page spreads in the Times, the Mirror and the Star. The story and the images even made it on to BBC Breakfast News!?

Telephone Box:?

Winter 2019 (pre Covid)

Mark and I knew, if we were to up the ante, in our mountain top, prop adventures, there was only one obvious choice for our next challenge….Pen y Fan.

Adjacent to the Storey Arms car park is a famous red telephone box. This telephone box has marked both the start and finishing point, for millions of hikers, walkers, climbers and members of the military, as they begin their ascent of Pen y Fan and beyond.

The telephone box is a red K6 Kiosk. This iconic British institution, was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V in 1935.?

As luck would have it…. we have an exact, full sized replica, that I made a few years back, in our prop warehouse and so the choice of prop to take the summit was an easy one.

We realised that, just the two of us, dragging a full sized telephone box, weighing 60 kilos, to the top of Pen y Fan and back down again would be an epic challenge. We decided, we would need to train hard for this one!

We strapped our phone box, on its side, covered with a tarp, to the same table trolley that had carried the Lion, most of the way up the Sugar Loaf. We rigged up some harnesses, added some extra weights to the trolley, to replicate the supplies we would need to take with us, and began spending our winter evenings, practicing pulling the trolley up some remote mountain lanes, by torchlight. Could we do this? Was it physically possible for us? ...Yes!, was our resounding decision. Would we be allowed to do this?…Probably No!

I decided that?for the best chance of capturing some amazing photographs, the ideal time to set off, would be in the middle of the night, after a light snow fall. A 3am start should allow sufficient time to drag and push the telephone box to the summit, before daybreak. An early start would also mean, that we were less likely to attract any negative attention. In my mind, I could see the stark contrast between the red of the phone box, set against a blanket of white on the hills, would surely afford the best chance of some striking imagery.?

It was now December 2019, and we were studying the forecasts for the perfect weather conditions.?

Pen y Fan can be brutal in winter. The weather can be gloriously sunny and warm in the car park below, but on the summit, it can be a total white-out blizzard, blowing a sub zero, freezing gale!.?

Winds are generally calmest for the first two hours after sunrise, and so, the best opportunity was definitely to aim to be on the summit for sunrise….quickly take some pictures, and then hastily start the descent.

Light snow was forecast in the Beacons! Mark and I decided that a recce at the summit, to gauge weather conditions was a good idea, and so early that evening, the day before we planned to make the attempt, we hiked to the top in the dark. As we left the car park to begin the recce climb, there was a light dusting of snow, blowing around the car park, but hardly anything. By the time we had got three quarters of the way up, we were trudging through 12 inches of virgin snow, and the going was very heavy indeed. We realised that attempting to pull the heavily laden trolley through snow this deep would be impossible. We made the decision to abandon the challenge….for now!

When Covid arrived, we decided to shelve any further plans for mountain top, prop adventures. Looking back on it, this was probably a good decision. At the back of my mind, I had considered that the Pen y Fan, phone box carry, may well have backfired, spectacularly.?

The mountains are inherently dangerous places. One of us could have got injured, we could have got stuck, we could have lost control of the trolley on the descent…..there were a number of possible scenarios we discussed, where things could have gone badly wrong.

If we had an accident, we may have needed to call Mountain Rescue, who would have been well pissed off, when they saw what we were attempting to do!?

Instead of the amazing positive feedback we had received previously, we might have been pilloried in the press for irresponsible behaviour! ?

My idea had always been to get the phone box up there and back again, before hardly anyone had noticed we’d done it. If nobody saw how we did it, how could they criticise our methodology!?

If we do return to this idea, I think more than two pair of hands on the trolley will be needed!

For now, our phone box replica, is happy, appearing at London themed events around the UK….apart from the odd day out in the woods above Cwmbran Scenic Drive....