I have been thinking on a solo run effort around the Snowdonia Slate Trail for a while - ever since my husband and I walked round the trail in 3 x days back in April 2028 and I started a Solo Supported effort on 10 August 2020 and then promptly sprained my ankle just over an hour into the round! Fast forward a few years, after a bout of injury and lack of activity resulting in a diagnosis of an auto-immune type of arthritis, Axial Spondyloarthritis, in April 2022 and subsequent rehab and training...I noted this time of year in 2025 would provide a window of opportunity, and it's a better time of year to avoid large amounts of bracken and ticks that increase during Spring/Summer months. Focusing in on a couple of weeks in February, the w/c 17 February worked with life/work/family plans and then, specifically, 17/18 February looked like a good weather window, having been dryer for a week or so before (a chance for shoe-eating bogs to dry up a little!) and winds were decreasing and very cold temperatures rising slightly...before rain coming in later in the week.
When my husband and I walked the trail in 2018, we decided to reverse the route conceived and described in Aled Owen's guidebook 'Snowdonia Slate Trail' (Rucksack Readers). This was because I mainly wanted to descend Mynydd Llandegai to Bethesda at the end of the route (ascending it always seems to take so long?!) and I also thought I might prefer some of the aesthetics of the route going in a clockwise way from Bethesda to Bangor. So this is the way I chose to run my Solo Unsupported effort - clockwise, starting from Bethesda at 00:00.
Starting at 00:00 meant that I would take in some more familiar sections of the route in darkness, and have a full day to complete the southern/farthest away part of the route - before returning to more familiar/home ground in darkness again towards the end. This did mean losing a proper night's sleep even before starting the run, as I only napped for a few sketchy hours between 1730 - 2115 before starting the run.
The weather was breezy and cold to start with, apx 5 deg with a chilly SE wind - although not as cold as the week before thankfully. But seeing as this route is not exposed on high ground for lengthy periods of time, I figured it would be a conducive route to complete in 'winter months'. Having said that, ground conditions can be challenging in some places, particularly after rain - so I was fortunate that mid-February gave us a drier spell in North Wales for some of the bogs/mud to dry out a little. I noticed the benefit of this vs some early recce/training runs I had completed between Nov 24 - Feb 25 (some were awfully wet and boggy!) The day was a lovely February day - apx 10 deg in the sun - lighter winds - perfect for running. The evening became windier again and felt cold when not moving. Lucky I kept moving!
I managed my water supplies with a mixture of using some public refill taps, provided by Eryri National Park at public toilets in Betws-y-Coed and Rhyd Ddu and I also took water from streams (either filling bottles straight from the stream, filtering the water with a water filter bottle or treating it with purification tablets if I was unsure of the water quality). This proved very adequate to cover all eventualities because the route is quite low level at times, there's not always an abundance of fresh, flowing water I'd be happy to drink - especially through farming areas. My bag was mostly filled with real food so I had lots of options of what to eat, to avoid food fatigue (although I still experienced this at times!) I don't use sports nutrition very often as I have trouble absorbing the high levels of carbohydrate it seems, but I did take some emergency Veloforte Soft Chews + Caffeine + Electrolytes, which I benefitted from massively in the final few hours. My 'real food' options probably weren't providing me with enough carbohydrate per hour - which is usually fine for shorter efforts but I noticed a distinct slump in physical power/energy post 19 hours. I used Precision Fuel 1000 hydration tablets in one of my flasks and took a mini squeezy bottle of Apple + Blackcurrant concentrated squash to add to other water flasks, for flavour.
I ran with a 20L Montane Gecko pack with an addition of an OMM 4L Chest Pod for extra food storage. Altra Olympus 4 trainers gave good cushioning/traction but I can always feel my toes move about in these shoes when 'off path' in muddy/boggy/grassy ground and this felt uncomfortable in some places. Apart from having to proactively manage some nutrition/fatigue/muscle power issues towards the end, I stayed well hydrated all day and no cramping or muscle/tendon issues, which I was really grateful for. I listened to 4 x podcasts over my time out, or I just sung songs in my head and talked to myself sometimes!
I really enjoyed heading over Cwmorthin and the long descent to Croesor - I never really enjoy heading over the upland bog of Mynydd Llandegai!
As far as I am aware, this round of the Snowdonia Slate Trail could be the first time anyone has gone round the trail in a Solo/Unsupported style. I am pleased to have been in a place - practically, physically and mentally - to have completed this really cool journey around Eryri, with all its different characters, terrains, history and geology. I am grateful to my husband for dropping me off to Bethesda and collecting me again from Bangor.
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Editor's note: Flagged only because the official start is at Bangor and the official end is at Bethesda, but this run reversed the start and end points.