2017 was a difficult year for the Where Ravens Dare. Due to the local larch trees having succumbed to a disease, Natural Resources Wales have been hard at working clearing large swathes of woodland which in turn has had an impact on the proposed challenge walk routes. The amount of work undertaken by Rob Richardson, Hugh Woodford and Rob Wilkinson cannot be underestimated and it was due to their persistence that viable routes were identified. The three super-heroes also spent a day clearing head high bracken to ensure that our entrants would be able to walk over Mynydd y Lan from Cwmcarn to Ynysddu without having to bushwhack through the summer growth.
We added a new route for 2017. We had noted that without any extra work, that we could add a 23 mile route, but it didn’t seem to attract that many people; perhaps it was because the 23 mile entrants still had to complete the same amount of height ascent as the 26 mile route.
122 people pre-registered for the event but we were disappointed that only 85 of our pre-registered entrants turned up. This equates to a ‘no-show’ of 30% which in turn meant a mountain of food went to waste. The weather forecast was good with an overcast and slightly moist start giving way to settled autumnal blue sky day so we don’t think it was the weather that caused so many people not to arrive. Some had even entered in the week before the event and still didn’t show up! With one entry on the day it meant that we had 86 people out on the three routes. Those who were late back enjoyed fantastic evening light which showed these hills off at their finest.
The South Wales LDWA committee will decide in the next two weeks as to whether the Where Ravens Dare should continue as a challenge event or whether she should invent a new route in a new location. We’ll keep you updated.
David Morgan, Challenge Walk Coordinator
See the 2017 results: PDF file, MS Excel spreadsheet or LDWA Results Service
Our volunteers were:
| Rod Hollands | John Tinelli | Shirley Hume | Rob Richardson |
| Jason Winney | Arny Williams | Alwyn Nixon | Gill Morgan |
| Tony Alcock | Gwyneth Littlejohn | Jill Richardson | Jo Johnstone |
| Sue Johns | Ferne Davies | Jason Winney | Rob Wilkinson |
| Judith Fox | Aranka Pratt | Andy Barnes | Sarah Swaysland |
| Gill Morgan | Cheryl Llewellyn | Heather Woodford | Norma Lloyd |
| Byron Davies | Hew James | Laura Turner | Mike Batt |
| Gwyn Matthews | Angela Williams | Hugh Woodford |
Read an entrant’s blog entry about the event.
(Many thanks from the organisers for the feedback – much appreciated)