Hoogah walk Pen Y Fan
We wanted to do something a bit more than adding our monthly specials to our pizza and drinks menu to support our charity of the month, so we’re walking up Pen Y Fan in aid of a good friend of Hoogah who was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive bowel cancer; Steve has helped with handy jobs within Hoogah, from shelving, flooring to our beautiful planters. We can’t thank him enough for his hard work and for the laughs he has provided whenever in his presence.
There’s nothing Steve loves more than being out enjoying the world and being active, with this in mind the Hoogah crew decided that in support of Swansea’s Cancer Centre and to support Steve we would wake up at the crack of dawn and walk up Pen Y Fan, hoping to see a sunrise.
The journey began with the crew meeting at 3AM at HQ, 80s classics playing as Bea sat on the laptop doing orders for the coming week as everyone arrived, after filling up flasks full of coffee and boxes with cakes we set off convoying towards Pen Y Fan.
After a straightforward walk up the path we got hit with sharp winds, low clouds and a bit of confusion. A number of us huddled together by a rock pile we thought was where everyone takes their Pen Y Fan photos, but alas, it was just a pile of rocks, giving us false hope of reaching our destination, we sheltered from the winds and waited for the stragglers of our team before walking in hope of finding the summit.
The team ended up scrambling up some ‘steps’ after losing the main path and some almost stumbled into wild camping tents mistakingly thinking it was the correct path - oops! After spotting a nice couple with a dog who seemed to know where they were going we made it to the top all in one piece and spirits high as we escaped the winds and enjoyed our well earned coffee and cakes!
We sat at the top waiting for the clouds to clear enough for us to catch a glimpse of the view but unfortunately they weren’t budging. Once we caught our breath, fuelled up with coffee and cinnamon rolls and had our little photoshoot at the top we descended down along the path we missed whilst walking up in the dark.
As we walked down towards the cars we caught several breaks in the clouds, exposing beautiful views and a rewarding start to all of our day.
From all of us here at Hoogah we’d like to extend a massive thank you to everyone who donated, whether through JustGiving, our collection box in store or by trying out our Charity of the Month menu additions!
We managed to raise over £1,000 with all of your help, so thank you all very much and for showing your kindness and support!
