Story Pop: The Black Sheep Circuit, A New British Challenge

The UK has its famous mountain challenges — the National Three Peaks, the Welsh 3000s, the Yorkshire Three Peaks — but they all share the same limitation: they’re built around speed. You rush the summits, race the clock, and barely touch the landscapes you’ve come to climb.

The Black Sheep Circuit is something different.

This episode introduces a new British hiking challenge: a five‑day odyssey across six nations and seven peaks, linking Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, the Isle of Man, and Wales into one continuous mountain story. No stopwatch. No shortcuts. No drive‑by summits. Just the harder, more meaningful way — the way these landscapes deserve to be experienced.

Philip breaks down the logistics behind the challenge: the flights, the long drives, the weather windows, the fatigue management, the gear problems, the planning puzzles, and the realities of executing a multi‑nation mountain circuit in real time. From London to Cork, Dublin to Glasgow, Manchester to the Isle of Man, and finally into Wales for the Pen y Fan Horseshoe, this is the story of how the Black Sheep Circuit was built and what it takes to complete it.

Along the way, Philip explores the deeper identity behind the challenge — the idea of the “black sheep” as the wanderer, the boundary‑walker, the person who chooses difficulty on purpose. And he shares the moment on Mickledore that gave the challenge its name: a stand‑off with a lone black sheep on a narrow ridge between Scafell and Scafell Pike.

If you’ve ever felt the pull of the edges, the borders, the ridges — if you’ve ever wanted a challenge that’s about range, not speed — this episode is your invitation.

The Black Sheep Circuit:
A new British mountain challenge for people who don’t just climb peaks —
they cross worlds.

www.blisterpopadventures.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:15

This is Off You Pop, the podcast for hikers and adventurers who want to be epic in just one day. The UK has its iconic challenges. The National Three Peaks, the Welsh Three Thousands, the Yorkshire Three Peaks. They're brilliant, they're respected, but they all share the same limitation. They're built around speed. You race the clock, you push the summits, you drive through the night, you touch the landscapes, but you don't really experience them. And that's fine, that's the point of those challenges. But it's not the point of mine. I wanted something different, something slower, farther and deeper. Something that forced me to be in each landscape, not just tag it. Something that made me climb the mountains the challenging way, the meaningful way, the way that actually teaches you something about the place. That's where the Black Sheep Circuit comes in. A five-day Odyssey across six nations and seven peaks. A challenge built not around speed, but around range. The ability to cross borders, shift landscapes, and keep moving within the terrain, the weather, and the logistics all change beneath your feet. This is a challenge of flights, long drives, early starts, wet gear, and cumulative fatigue. It's a challenge that forces you to think like a traveler, not just a climber. A challenge that turns the British Isles into a single connected mountain story. And although the journey didn't begin with a sheep, the name did. On Mickledore, the narrow saddle between Scarfell and Scarfell Pike, I find myself in a standoff with a lone black sheep. It stood dead centre on the line, staring at me like it had been placed there on purpose. Then it turned and ran. And I realized I wasn't the one running. I was the one still standing on the ridge. That moment didn't start the challenge, but it named it the Black Sheep Circuit. A new British mountain challenge for people who don't just climb peaks. They cross worlds. This is off you pop. Before we get into the mountains, the flights, the drives, the weather, and the logistics, we need to talk about identity, about why this journey matters, and why you matter inside it. Every family has a black sheep. Not the rebel, not the failure, but the wanderer. The one who looks at the safe field, the predictable life, the familiar radius, and quietly thinks, what's beyond that hill? The one who fills the fence long before anyone else notices it's there, the one who steps through it. In the old Celtic imagination, the black sheep wasn't a misfit, it was a boundary creature. The animal that drifted toward the edge of the pasture, toward the cliff, toward the unknown. It wasn't escaping, it was exploring, and that's what hikers are. We're the people who leave warmth for cold, we leave flat for steep, we leave comfort for weather. We leave the known world for the ridge. Not because we're running up from anything, but because something in us says, there's more out there than this. The black sheep carries the family's unanswered questions. What if I left? What if I didn't do the expected thing? What if I chose difficulty on purpose? What if I wrote my own map instead of inheriting one? Most people never act on those questions, but the black sheep does. The black sheep lives the unchosen life, the alternative path everyone else wandered about, but never pursued. And that's what this circuit is. Not rebellion, not escape, but the moment the wanderer becomes the guide, the moment the black sheep becomes the shepherd of their own life. So the journey didn't begin with a sheep, but the name did. On Mickledore, the narrow saddle between Scarfell and Scarfell Pike, I met a black sheep standing dead center on the trail. A proper standoff. It didn't graze. It didn't drift. It didn't behave like a normal sheep. It held its ground, staring, still, deliberate. As if the ridge itself had sent a messenger. Two wanderers on a boundary line. One human, one animal. Then it turned and ran. Not in panic, not in fear, just decisively. And I realized I wasn't the one running. I was the one still standing on the ridge. The moment didn't start the journey, but it named it the Black Sheep Circuit. This episode isn't a story about the individual mountains on the Black Sheep Circuit. I've done other episodes where you can learn more about each of the peaks and the journey that I took. This is really about how you string together the entire circuit and how you manage and plan the logistics of a five-day odyssey around the British Isles. So I started out with the idea that I wanted to achieve a childhood dream to complete the UK Three Peaks Challenge. This is a 24-hour challenge where you climb the highest peak in Scotland, England, and Wales in a 24-hour mad dash across the British Isles. And as I began my planning, I realized there were a few variants of the challenge, one being the UK Six Peaks Challenge. And the UK Sixpeaks Challenge added in the idea of Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the Isle of Man. Interestingly, that these are not nations that make up the UK. They are part of the British Isles. But Ireland is its own independent country, and the Isle of Man is a cloud dependency with its own government. But as I got closer and closer, I realized more and more that the UK Three Peaks wasn't going to be enough. If I was going to travel from the United States and spend my valuable vacation time, I wanted to make the most of it. And I wanted to really experience all of these wonderful places across the British Isles. And so I began planning my own UK Six Peaks Challenge with the idea of getting it completed in just three days, 72 hours to connect six nations, six peaks on three different islands. And so the planning began in the winter. I began to plan the logistics to try and figure out how to string all of these peaks together in a short time window. My biggest challenge was connecting the islands and reconnecting with rental cars. And this became the puzzle. Trying to figure out which version of the challenge will enable me to get it done in 72 hours. And this puzzle and this time pressure became a burden. And as I started exploring each of the mountains and the ranges, I realized to get the 72-hour window completed, I'd need to be hiking some of the peaks in the dark. And while that is challenging, it's not enjoyable to experience a peak in the dark. I may as well be hiking in my backyard if I'm just going to see the darkness. So I began to change my plans a little and try to figure out how not only to do the challenge in 72 hours, but to see if I could spend most of my time in the daylight so I could truly experience the landscapes. And I figured out how to do it. The biggest stumbling block that I was having was getting to the Isle of Man. And there are a number of ways to get there, ferries being my primary target. I could get a ferry from Dublin, a ferry from Belfast, a ferry from Manchester, a ferry from the Lake District, and even a ferry from Southern Ireland. But none of them quite connected in a way that would make the 72-hour window possible. In the end, I abandoned the whole idea of the romance of taking the ferry and opted instead to take a flight. And so that was going to be my plan. I would be flying instead of taking the ferry in order to meet my 72-hour window. As I planned the logistics of transatlantic flight, I wanted to make sure I had a little bit of time at the beginning to meet family. And then afterwards, just in case things went wrong in my 72 hours, I needed to spend an extra day to complete my journey. And then I thought, you know what? I've got an extra day. If I finish this circuit, maybe I can tack on another British mountain range that I really, really wanted to climb. And that was the Penny Fan horseshoe. And so, right before, the week before, I decided, you know what? I'm not going to do the 72 hours. I'm going to do things the way I want to do them. I'm going to do these mountains the challenging way. I'm going to do them the interesting way. I'm not just going to race up to the peak and race back down again. I'm going to the journeys how I want to do them. And I'm going to get them done in the daylight. And so my 72-hour challenge of the UK Six Peaks was pretty simple to modify. I just needed to switch around some of my timings and some of my hotels. And so I determined to do the UK Six Peaks in four days, planning for a more leisurely, more challenging ascent of each of the mountains. And then on the fifth day, driving down to South Wales and doing the famous penny fan horseshoe. And so my plans were set. And now all that was left was the crazy logistics and trying to execute this five-day moldy country hiking experience, which I've now named the Black Sheep Circuit. So let's begin at the beginning. I live on the western United States, and so my experience would have to begin with a transatlantic flight and trying to manage a quick transition to a different time zone and handling jet lag. And so I flew from Reno, Nevada to London Heathrow. When I arrived, I'd been traveling for 24 hours overnight to arrive in London at 7 a.m. in the morning. My plan was to stay awake all day and connect with my sister in London to spend a little bit of time together. And so that's what I did. I got off the plane, I went to my hotel at the airport and dropped off my luggage, and then I took the tube up into central London. It was a drizzly, grey, overcast day, and I was sat in the train carriage surrounded by people on their way to work. And when I met my sister at St. Pancreas, we spent the day together wandering around central London, catching up, and we even took a little visit to a place called the Greenwich Observatory. If you're British, you know this place well. This is the place where all time begins. And what I mean by that is this is the place of zero meridian. Everything to the east of this time zone is in the future. And everything behind this time zone is in the past. It's the place where they set the idea of standardizing time zones across the world to make it easier to navigate. And so I thought this was a great symbolic place to visit while enjoying time catching up with family. So as the day wore on and we wandered around, I became more and more tired. The jet lag was catching up, but I knew I had to stay awake. So I spent the afternoon down in coffee as we wandered through the drizzly backwaters of central London, and eventually we parted, and I took a tube back to Heathrow Airport, back to my hotel in the airport, and I fell asleep. The next day I was going to be flying to Cork, and so I got my stuff ready, I got prepared, and I went over to the terminal, and I took a flight to Cork, took a couple of hours, and landed at mid-afternoon. And when I got to Cork, I connected with a rail car. This was going to be the car that I was going to be using for the Irish leg of the journey. And I checked at the rental car place, a couple of important logistics. One of the important logistics is that I could travel to Northern Ireland, which is technically in a different country. And so I double-checked when I got to the counter that this was going to be okay. I was also going to be dropping my car in Dublin, but not back at Cork. I made this preparation when I booked my rental car. So I landed, and the checkout in Cork for the rental car is inside the airport. You go to the desk, they check you in, and then you have to walk over to the rental car place, which is outside of the airport, and connect with the car park attendant. And they gave me a small car that I was just about able to put my luggage in. And then I realized, oh yeah, they drive on the other side of the road. Now I have been smart enough to get an automatic car. It's been a long time since I drove a manual car. And so I didn't have to worry about changing gears, but I did have to remember that I would be driving on the other side of the road. And so my rule of thumb for this is you are always in the middle of the road. As a driver, so long as you're in the middle of the road, then you're driving on the right side of the road. And so I left the airport and I drove down through Southern Ireland to the village of Glenkar, where I'd booked a room at a place called the Climber's Inn, which was just to the south of the McKillicari Range and Caranto Hill. And so Caronto Hill in Southern Ireland was going to be my starting point. And the wonderful thing about Carranto Hill being the tallest in Southern Ireland is that it is a ridge, the McKillicadi Range. And so you can connect together a number of peaks. Now, had I planned this a little bit differently, I would love to have done the ridge from the Hydro Road. Now, the Hydro Road will take you up over the McKillicadi Ridge, over the second highest peak in Ireland, and across a really gnarly ridgeline before you hit Caranto Hill. But in my original planning, I had determined that I needed to get Ireland done in 24 hours. And so, in order to get it done in 24 hours, that meant I would have to leave and start the hike very, very early in the morning. And so, Carantu Hill, unfortunately, I did a bit of an easier way. But had I planned it differently, I would have planned potentially for spending a little bit more time in the McKilly Cuddies and doing more of a ridge traverse. And this was the theme of my ordered Black Sheep Circuit, was not only to just go up and down, but to try and make more of an adventure out of each of the hikes. And so by the time I got to Southern Ireland in the evening, it was about 8 p.m. And I walked into the climbers inn and there were some hikers there eating and playing poor. And I went into the pub and the barman showed me to my room. And so one of the key logistical things you have to think about when you are doing these types of adventures is the logistics of being ready to get up the next day and go hiking. And so I'd gone into my room, basically figured out what I needed for the next day, and packed my backpack accordingly. I put water in it, I put the equipment that I needed, the spare clothes that I needed, I set up the whole setup for my pack. And I laid out the clothes I was going to be wearing the next day in my room. And I put all the rest of the stuff back in my suitcase. And then I took the suitcase and my hiking pack back to the car. So I didn't have to worry about it, worry about it in the morning. And this was sort of the theme I followed throughout the five-day journey was the evening before was all about setting up for success the next day, making sure I had food, water, all the stuff I'd need for the next day, ready to go, in the car, no worries. And then I went down to the bar and spent some time getting a meal. And I thought, you know, I'd I'd better have something to help me sleep. And I thought beer, and particularly Guinness, normally sends me to sleep. So let me have a Guinness and hopefully that'll help send me to sleep because I really, really needed some sleep because the plan for the next day for Caranto Hill was to get up at 2 o'clock. Because in the original 72-hour timetable, I was going to be climbing Caranto Hill, driving five and a half hours across Ireland, climbing Slave Denard in Northern Ireland, and then driving down to Dublin to catch my flight to Scotland. So it was going to be a very long day. And as I'm pondering and thinking about this journey and the things that might happen, the delays, you know, there might be traffic jam. There might be issues with me hiking. I might get a little bit lost. It might take longer than I'm planning for. I figured I should probably get up at 1.30 and give myself just a little bit more, a little bit of a half an hour buffer. This is also something you need to think about when you're planning the logistics of a challenging moldy day hike with difficult, challenging transitions is what's the backup of the backup? And so in this case, my backup was to get up just a little bit earlier to give myself a little bit more time. And I was chatting with the barman at the bar, and he says, you know, what are you doing? I told him I was going to be climbing Carring Hill and that I'd be leaving the hotel around 1.30 or 2 o'clock in the morning. And what would what would you like me to do with the key? Because it was a small establishment. I didn't know if they were expecting like a formal checkout sometime in the morning. And he just looked at me with puzzlement and he basically said to me, you know, it doesn't get light until 6. And I said I'm aware of that, but I think it actually gets light a little bit earlier. I had checked when daylight was. So this is another thing you need to take into account when you're doing these types of hikes, especially if you want to get a sunrise, you want to sort of plan the hike so that you are experiencing the best part of the hike or the best part of the day where possible. And so my intent all along had been to start in the dark, knowing it was sort of a two to three hour climb, that when I got to the top of the mountain, it will be fully light. And on the way back down, I could really enjoy the scenery. Ideally, like I said, I would love to have started in the morning in the daylight, maybe just slightly before dark, and take on that more challenging route. But really, this day was a really tight schedule. And so he still looked at me funny, thought I was crazy, but that's part of the black sheep life, right? We're not here for the easy. We're here to push the limits and the boundaries. And so starting at 1.30 in the morning was certainly something that most hikers can equate to. People like us who go out and do challenging, difficult long hikes, even challenging difficult day hikes, are used to getting up super early in the morning so we can drive a couple of hours and get to that start of the trailhead early in the morning, pre-dawn in the blue zone. And so when I woke up the next day at 1.30, it was a simple procedure. Yeah, put on my hiking clothes, brush my teeth, go to the bathroom, out the door in the car, and off you go. And so that's what I did. Now, the unfortunate thing is the Guinness didn't really help me sleep that much. So I didn't get to bed till about 10.30. So I only got three hours of sleep, which wasn't ideal, but you know, that's the way it goes sometimes. And so I got in my car and I'd already scoped out the route to the trailhead. I'd already pre-planned my entry and exit into the parking lot of the trailhead. Now, the parking lot for this one is at a place called Croman's Yard. And on the way down, I had taken a detour to the trailhead. I'd known that there was a barrier, and you had to pay two euros to get out of the parking lot after you went into it. And so I desperately needed a two euro coin in order to feed it into the machine to get out. And so I hadn't got a two-eurocoin at that point. I just got off the airport and I had some euro notes, maybe a hundred euros or so, just for cash for the day. And so when I got there, there's a little cafe there. Unfortunately, the cafe was open. And so I'd also noticed a sign there that said no overnight parking, which was a bit problematic. I wondered if it would be open at two in the morning or 2.15 whenever I arrived. And I went inside and there was a young lady in there minding the cafe. And I just asked her, is it okay if I come at two in the morning? And she said that was fine. And then I asked her if she had a $2 coin. And she said, you can pay by card. I'm like, oh, great. I can pay by card. I don't have to worry about a $2 coin. She said, no, give me your card and swipe it, and I'll give you a $2 coin. And so she did that. And so I just left that in the console of the car because now I was prepared. No worrying about finding a two-euro coin or getting stuck in the parking lot. But it's an important consideration, you know, how do you manage parking when you're at some of these trailheads, particularly in the British Isles? Sometimes you have to pay for parking at the trailhead. And so when I, you know, the next day when I arrived, two in the morning, I knew how to drive, I knew how to get there, and I got to the parking lot and went in in through the barrier and parked up. And safe and sound though, I knew I'd be able to get out of the parking lot enough to stress about that, particularly on a day where time didn't really matter. And so when I got to the parking lot, I got my pack out and basically was ready to go, so no delays there. And it was chilly, damp in the morning, but I wasn't really prepared for the unpredictability of the British weather. And what I hadn't planned for was that unpredictability. Because quite often you have periods of rain, periods of dry, periods of wind, periods of mixed wind and rain. And I forgot that my transitions were fairly quick. And I would need to manage how I dry my clothes strategically because I forgot I was going to be wet and need to get dry and go to airports and not be like soggy wet when I get to the airport and change it to regular clothes and stuff. And so on the way up to Caranto Hill, the way I was going to wait make this one a little bit more challenging was to go up a path called the Devil's Ladder, which is an extremely steep, sort of thousand-foot, I think it's 886 feet, climb over about half a mile. And so I started out in the dark. I had headlamp at a spare headlamp. And as soon as I started, it started raining. But fortunately, I had a rain jacket with me, so I was able to transition into that pretty quickly. And that became a lifesaver, that that rain jacket. And also put a waterproof covering over my pack. I had that. Actually, the first time in like five years I've ever used it. But it was useful to keep stuff dry. And I always, when I hike, I'd always keep all my stuff in dry bags, just because then you don't really have to worry so much about the weather and your stuff will stay dry. It also helps you organize the stuff within within the pack. So I have a a dry bag with some spare clothes in, a dry bag with like first aid kit and walletry and stuff, and then a dry bag with food and a dry bag with electronics. I can just grab a bag and sort of know what I'm getting pretty easily, so I can get in and out of the pack pretty quickly. As I'm getting into the hike, it's sort of the rain dies off, the rain starts again. And as you're getting up into the darkness of the McKillicadi range, navigation becomes an issue. And so the other key piece of preparing and planning for this type of Odyssey is research your hikes, know those hikes, commit them to memory. So every single one of these seven hikes that make up the Black Sheep Circuit was done with months of preparation. I knew exactly the route I was going to be taking on each of these mountains. I'd already planned it out. I'd visualized it. I'd read blogs online. I'd watched YouTube videos online. I knew exactly where I was going. I downloaded the trails I was going to be taking. All trails is a pretty good one that will allow you to download the trail if you've got the paid version. I also have Gaia. So in Gaia, if you have the paid version, you go online, you can actually map out your hike in Gaia and then download that back to the app. So I had a backup and a backup for each of the trails. I knew in my mind where I was going and which direction I was going and how I was going to do the hike. So it was really, really important for the County Hill leg because I was going to be doing it in the dark. And the other thing I hadn't accounted for, although I was sort of anticipating it, was as you climb higher up in the mountains, particularly earlier in the morning, the likelihood of the cloud level being lower than the peak was high. If it wasn't the cloud level that was coming down, it would be mist or fog and rain that's rolling off of the ocean and the seas around the British Isles, which would make visibility a challenge, which made it even more important to ensure that you have your maps downloaded to your phone. Now there is another recommendation that you carry paper maps. And while I love that idea, like not relying on technology, but having a paper map as a backup is is a great idea. In practicality these days, it's kind of more challenging to get a map. And technology is far better at enabling you to navigate because it can also tell you where you are on a map. A paper map doesn't tell you where you are on a map, so if you start getting lost, you still have to figure out where you are on that map. And you have to be able to read a map and a compass. And fortunately, I do know how to do that, but I didn't have the time to figure out where to buy a paper map for each of these hikes because I couldn't get them in the US. I'd have to get them when I got to the UK. But I've been pretty fortunate in the last five years working off of apps. The important thing with relying on a phone and an app is make sure you have backup power. So I always have a backup power bank, because that's the critical thing is, you know, if you run out, if your phone runs out of power, then you're in trouble. Now, of course, you're going to lose your phone and blah, blah, blah. But that's where the planning comes in. If you have an idea about where you are in the world, what the height looks like, what the range looks like, you're not completely uh in trouble if you your phone dies. You sort of have a memory of of where you're supposed to be going and kind of figure that out. Most of my hikes that I will be doing are sort of loops that I've designed myself and I've been online, I've mapped them all out online. So I've sort of committed them to memory. So I felt fairly confident in the in the navigation for all these hikes, whatever the weather or the daylight threw at me. And so I went up the devil's ladder up to Carantou Hill. And this is where I made the loop a little bit interesting, not super interesting on this one. I if if you're doing a tri if you're gonna do the true black sheet circuit, I highly recommend starting at hydro and taking the much more challenging route up the back of Carantou Hill and across that really gnarly ridgeline that will get you up to Carantou Hill. Make more of a traverse out of it. If I went up the Devil's Ladder, which was really it was tough. It was challenging in the dark. There was a lot of water running down off of the Devil's Ladder, making it more like a stream climb. But then when I get to the top, it's white out, it's windy, it's cold. I put my gloves on, had to navigate my way up to Caranto Hill. One of the beautiful things about a lot of these British mountains is they've built cairns as direction points. So you can use those cans as navigational points, even if there's wide out, even if there's snow, they're very useful markers. And then on the way back, what I wanted to do was take something called the zigzag. So it required another little climb. So I got a second peak in Nochtnantoyne, which was like a very large, rounded green hill, up and over that and then down the zigzags. And when I got to the bottom of the zigzags, it's back on relatively flat ground. So then I could make up a lot of time. So then I was sort of fast packing out of the McKilly Cuddy range. But it was really nice because when I got to the top of Caranto Hill, like I predicted, not the bar, not the barman, light was at five, like 5.15. And I knew the blue zone started a little bit before then, even you know, half an hour before. So by the time I'm getting up to the ridge line and starting to make my way up to the peak of Carrantou Hill, the blue zone's coming on. Actually, at the base of the final ascent up to Carantou Hill, I turned my headlamp off in the dark because with my headlamp on in the clouds, there was a lot of like mist and rain coming down, and it really hampered visibility with the light reflecting off of it. So I turned it off and I was able to see the trail much better than having the headlamp on. So by the time I got back off of Caranto Hill and made it back to Cronin's yard, it was 7 a.m. Perfect time. This was exactly on schedule, so I was really happy about that. But I was pretty damp and wet. And I knew I had another hike to do later that day. And while I had changes of clothes, I didn't have infinite amounts of changes of clothes. And so I got out of my hiking gear and I kind of draped it in the car to help it dry off. And this was going to be a perpetual challenge throughout the black sheep circuit was how to dry off my clothes. I mean, I didn't have a limited, unlimited amount of suitcase space that I could pack multiples of clothes, not for five days and seven mountain ranges. Just didn't have that amount of gear. And so I had to rely on being gamble to dry while I drove. So when I got back in the car, like I said, I strung out, I put my shoes in the back and took my socks off that were damp, and then my damp clothes. I sort of tried to scatter them around the car to act like a clothes horse within inside the car. And then as I'm driving, I put my two euro in the parking lot and I've mapped out the road journey up to Newcastle in Northern Ireland. So the next five hours were spent driving across Northern Ireland. And as I'm driving across Northern Ireland, I've got the heat blasted up to maximum because I'm I'm trying to make sure that the clothes are drying off. I'm getting so hot in the car, like I can feel my cheeks like burning. Like I've got to back this off a little bit. I'm gonna be gonna get burned from the heat in the car. So wound down the window, but it's rainy outside, so that doesn't help. So it's then I'm getting cold and hot and cold and hot, which isn't isn't ideal, but that became the challenge of of a lot of the a lot of the journey was how to try out your clothes and how not to look at like a stinky ass hiker when you get to the when you get to the airport. So after the five-hour drive, I arrived at Sleeve Denard, actually in pretty good time. I was up there, I think around 12.30 in the afternoon, which put me a little bit ahead of schedule. And so when I got into the parking lot, it was quite busy and there were a lot of people around, but I knew I had to then get back into my hiking gear. And lo and behold, it except for the socks, most of it had dried, at least the critical pieces had dried, and it was sort of overcast. And I've been watching the weather. That's the other important thing, is you have to plan for the unpredictability of the weather, uh, particularly in the British Isles when it's all on the coastline and you're going up the peaks, weather can change on a dime, and did regularly. And so I knew that this afternoon was going to be the potential high potential were thunderstorms. And what I really wanted to do for the Black Sheep Circuit was do a traverse from the bloody bridge over Sleevedon Island and back down into Donner Park. But as I'm thinking about it, driving out there, the thing I was relying on was being able to get to Donart Park and then find a cab to take me down to the bloody bridge so that I could do the traverse. What was throwing me off was the the weather basically. There's these heavy thunderstorms that were predicted, potential for flash flooding, and then once you get caught on the ridge in like mid-afternoon with lightning, that's a dangerous situation. And so my the original, and if you're going to do this, the one that I would recommend would be park your car at Donner Park and get a CAD. It's not too far, I think it's like 15, 20 minutes, if that, down to the bloody bridge. And then you can do a point-to-point from the bloody bridge up to Sleeve Denar and then back down to Donho Park. Because I sort of bottled it because of the weather and I was a little bit concerned about the timing. What I did instead was the outer bag for Donho Park, sort of the pedestrian way, which I didn't enjoy quite as much, just because I thought I wish I'd done the bloody bridge. But the bloody bridge ascent is a little bit more rugged and all exposed. There's no there's no cover. But on the Donho Park approach, there's some forest and some tree cover, at least until you get up into the morns. And so I opted to do that so if if it did sort of start thundering and lightning, I could make a quick descent into the forest and be a little bit more safe. And so that's the route I took for Sleeve Denard, not the one I recommend for the Black Sheep Circuit. Black Sheep Circuit's all about doing the more challenging route if you can. And you'll see I throughout this journey, my intent was to do the more challenging route. It didn't always work out that way. But yeah, that's the mountains. That's about hiking safety. Sometimes you have to modify just to make sure that you're staying safe. And so this was my compromise, just to do sleeve denard from Donald Park out and back. When I got there, it was I'm gonna say the weather was mixed. Sometimes it was sunny, and then sometimes it was cloudy and raining. So as I went up this mountain, I'm getting wet and getting hot and getting wet and getting hot. When I got up to the to the morne wall and came up on the ridge, the wind really whipped off uh the Irish Sea there. And the rain came in, it was colder. I can see as I'm starting the final ascent up the mourn wall to the top of Sleeve Denard. Just to the south of me, there was some black thunder clouds coming in. I know I knew that was just a thunderstorm, but it didn't seem to be emitting lightning, there was no thunder, but it was menacing. So I made quick work up to the ascent. And when I got to the top, the storm had rolled in and the rain was cold and it was whipping. And so I didn't spend too long on top of Sleeve Denard and came down pretty quickly. As I'm coming down, the rock is slick. Uh it's raining, you're cold, so you've got to keep moving and just be careful where you're stepping. And then by the time I got into the morns, the storm had passed and it was warm and hot again. So the next transition was interesting because when I got back to Donald Park, back to the parking lot, I knew I had to strip off all my hiking clothes and I had to pack my suitcase so that I could get on a flight when I got to Glasgow. So basically I stripped off in the parking lot, dried off, put on some deodorant, and tried to make myself look presentable. I kind of put street clothes on, I put my jeans on and a t-shirt, and then put all my wet clothes and then my backpack and everything. I kind of crammed it into the suitcase. So I just had one suitcase and my pack that I would take on the plane. I've just a little carry-on bag for the plane, all ready to go when I got to the got to the airport. So I did that and then I drove back down to the airport. And on the way down, I knew I had to get gas. And so getting gas in the petrol for the British people is sometimes challenging. Unlike the US, it's sometimes difficult to find out where services are on the road networks in the United Kingdom. Remember, they're much older road networks, and they weren't really built around gas and petrol and gas stations and providing services. So you're sort of hit and missing somewhat, hoping when you get off the freeway, you can find the gas station. And sometimes you find the gas station is like five miles away off the freeway. And I sort of had a little bit of that encounter on the way down to Dublin. I got off the freeway and it said there was gas, and it was like two miles off the freeway, which was a little bit frustrating. But I did get gas and then made my way down into Dublin, and there was some traffic, and so I had to deal with traffic. But I was making great time. I was on the edge of Dublin, I was getting close to the airport. And even though there was a bit of traffic, it wasn't too horrific. By the time I got to Dublin Airport, I went to the car rental place and dropped my car off and then got the bus over to the terminal. And I had plenty of time. It was it was maybe about six in the evening by the time I got everything figured out. I had checked in. And when I checked in, my bag was overweight because I'd taken one of them budget flights where you basically pay a buck for the flight. Well, like 35 bucks for the flight, and then you pay for everything else. And my my check-in bag was overweight, so I had to pay extra, and that became a bit of a shenanigan because I couldn't check in at the kiosk and I had to queue and go to the counter, and then they had to figure all that out. But it worked out in the end. And because I was there so early, it wasn't a stress about time. And so I went into the Glasgow Airport and actually had a little bit of time to kill. So I I went into the fancy VIP lounge in my stinky attitude in my sort of my with my hiking funk and got to use the fancy bathroom and got to eat some of the buffet food. I'm sitting waiting for my flight, and I have to get to Glasgow and pick up my second rental car before the rental car places. And so I arranged for a nine o'clock flight, which would get me in Glasgow about 10 o'clock, which would give me about an hour to get to the rental car place and pick up my rental car. Because I had to leave pretty early in the morning to drive from Glasgow up to Ben Nevis. So I'm sitting there in the lounge and suddenly my flight is delayed 40 minutes. Oh my god, this is a nightmare. I have got to get off of the plane, get my baggage, and then get to the rent car place in 20 minutes, if the delays don't escalate. And so I made a decision sitting in the lounge to call the rail car place and ask them if I can pick the car up after 11, if there's any way to do that. And they said that people would be there till 11.30 probably, so I'd probably be okay. And then I'd say, well, what what about if they're gone? What time can I pick it up in the morning? Because I needed really to leave at like 4.35 in the morning, because it was a two and a half hour drive up to up to Ben Nevis for the Scottish section. And they said, well, the rental car place doesn't open till till seven, which would put me a couple of hours behind schedule for the day. The other thing I planned for that I didn't mention was I was so worried about this flight from Dublin to Glasgow that I'd actually booked a second flight the very next morning that I intended to cancel should I make my flight. And so I also was in the lounge, canceled my flight in the morning because I was making this flight with plenty of time to spare. So anyway, my flight was delayed, but it took off uneventful flight, hour and a half, I think, from Dublin. Landed in Glasgow and was panicking. It was like 15 minutes before 11 o'clock, 10 45, and I was sitting on the plane. And fortunately, I had a scene near the front of the plane, but that doesn't help if you need to pick up your luggage. So I got off the plane and got to the luggage pickup spot, the baggage claim, and was waiting and waiting for my bag, and it's the time is ticking, and then at 10.55, my bag arrives, and I put off the conveyor, and I'm okay how to get to the rail car place, so I had to figure out how to get there. And it's actually you have to go out of the airport, out of Glasgow Airport, and it's a little bit of a walk. Actually, not too far, but it's a walk into the rail car place. So I'm dragging my suitcase behind me, heavy old suitcase, out of Glasgow, and running pretty much to the rail car place, and I run into the place, and it's one minute to 11 p.m. And I made it. I made it to the rail car place, but I am I'm pretty exhausted at this point. It's you know 11 p.m. and I'm tired and I've been up since 1.30 in the morning. I've been hiking across Ireland and I got the sales guy who was particularly detailed and wanted to make sure I was having the best customer service experience possible. I was dog tired. And so he shows me to a car and it's a sort of big, lumbery SUV type car. And I said, Really, I want something small. I'm going to be driving across England and across a bunch of backcountry lanes, and I don't want to be worried about navigating with this big bulky car. So he got me another car. And then he proceeded to take me in detail, give me a thorough explanation of the car, make sure I understood about the different sizes that qualify as a crack or a scuff. And then we examined the car and he took photos. It was spent 20 minutes with the with the rental car place. I didn't leave the rental car place until 1120. And then I'd booked a hotel at the Holiday Inn. And what I didn't realize is that there's a Holiday Inn and a Holiday Inn Express, both at Glasgow Airport. So I get the rental car and I drive to the Holiday In Express, park up, go into the lobby. We don't have your name, sir. But I booked the Holiday Inn. I said, she said, show me your reservation. Oh no, you're at the Holiday Inn. This is the Holiday Express. And so then I had to figure out how to navigate around Glasgow to get to the Holiday Inn. And so I made it to the Holiday Inn. And here's another navigational problem for you. A lot of the parking lots in hotels require that you pay for parking. And so they have an app to do that, which is great. And so I download the app and it wants my phone number. But because it's a US phone number, it doesn't recognise the phone number. So it doesn't send me the text to verify my account. I can't pay for the parking. So I'm messing around with the parking and now it's gone midnight. And so I went to the front desk and they've they figured it out for me. They let me pay at the front desk, which I wish they'd just done in the first place rather than having me mess with this app and machine and whatnot. So I didn't get into my room till 12.15, 12.20. I'm dull tired. And I basically prepare to sleep. And that's basically what I did. I think I jumped in a shower and went to sleep, and I went to sleep almost instantly, like at 12:30. And I was going to get up at 4.30 so I could hit the trail around 7, 7.30 when I got up to bed nervous. But I decided to have an extra half an hour's sleep since I've gone to bed so late. And so that's what I did. I woke up at 5 a.m. instead of 4.30 and basically got in my car and left. There wasn't any opportunity for breakfast, and that was a bit of a mistake because I didn't realise I'd be going up into the Scottish Highlands. You know, it's five in the morning, nothing's open. Managed to catch a gas station just on the outskirts of Glasgow. You know, I thought I'll grab a coffee and maybe a little snack, and then I'll find somewhere on the way. So that's what I did. I stopped, got a crappy coffee and I don't know, some sort of pastry, and then drove for the next two and a half hours up into the Scottish Highlands. And on the way up into the Scottish Highlands, there's not really any freeway or dual carriageway. It's all a single lane road all the way. And as I'm making my way up Loch Loman, I'm getting stuck behind this truck and this line of traffic. And it was just following this line of traffic all the way. It was kind of miserable. And then my GPS took me off this weird side turning up the side of Loch Loman, and it became pretty dramatic. More like single lane traffic. And so trying to navigate single lane traffic. Fortunately, it's early in the morning. There wasn't too many ongoing cars, but it made the journey a lot more interesting. Then I reconnected again and got stuck behind more traffic. Pretty much all the way up to Fort William. I was stuck in a line of traffic. But I tell you what, the drive up there, when you get to Glencoe, Glencoe is spectacular. Just this rugged mountainous region, and you're driving down through this valley with a towering mountains either side of you. It was really a beautiful, beautiful experience. And so I'm getting hungry. I've been driving for a couple of hours. Hadn't really had breakfast. And I get into Fort William. I think it's like 7:30 in the morning. Nothing's open at 7.30 in the morning. I found, fortunately, I found a supermarket where I could get some food for the hike. So I went into the supermarket, I grabbed a few things. I don't know why I couldn't find anything sort of breakfasty. I don't know, but I managed to get a few little snacks for Ben Nevis. Then there's a McDonald's across the street. And so my breakfast was this weird McDonald's cheese and bacon, kind of like a quesadilla thing. And a little hash brown and a little bit more coffee, but wasn't a hardy breakfast by any means, but it certainly was better than nothing. And then just on the outskirts of Ben Nevis is the way up to Glen Nevis to the Glen Nevis Visitor Center. And I guess I I hadn't really planned very well where I was going to start the hike, and I misread some of the parking signs. Ended up driving a little bit further up Glen Nevis than I intended to, but double back and realized you have to park at the Glen Nevis Visitor Center, and that's where you park. And lo and behold, more joy with having to pay for the parking. Actually a little bit easier. It was just a credit card machine, so it wasn't that challenging. And it was about 8.15 by the time I was getting settled and ready. Ben Nevis was a bit of a more of a low pressure day. I was only going to climb Ben Nevis on this day. In my original UK six peaks, 72 hours going to do Ben Nevis and Scarfield Pike down in England and then drive to Snowden. So it was going to be a really, really long day. Best case scenario is going to be a 20-hour day after, you know, my 23-hour day the day before. So I'm really glad I sort of backed off on it because I didn't have anybody driving me. There was a group of kids at the parking lot. They were doing the UK three peaks. This was the start, Ben Nevis. And I had their dad there driving them so they could just climb them out and then go in the back of the minivan, then run in and have a nap before they got down to down to Scarf or bike. I didn't have that luxury. I made some, I made a really critical error early on in on Ben Nevis. And that error was I put on too many layers. I thought it was going to be cold on top. So I put on like three layers and my raincoat. And I was pushing it a little bit early on. So it got really hot and sweaty in the Glen Nevis Valley and had to strip off a layer. And I didn't put the layer back on because it was covered in sweat. And so when I got to the top of Nevis, it was really hot, really cold. There was snow on top. The wind was whipping. You're up in the clouds again. And I hadn't really predicted for the weather. I didn't have time to put on gloves, or at least it didn't feel like I had the time to put on the gloves. And so it was kind of an gnarly up and down. I didn't really make much of a circuit out of Nevis. I don't think you need to. Nevis is kind of put it all on its own if you catch it on the wrong time. And there was some really cold whipping rain. It felt like a real grind to get up to Nevis. I think that was challenging enough on this day at least. And I think there are a couple other routes that you might want to explore if you want to make the Nevis ascent more challenging. There are a lot of climbing routes on Nevis and a lot of big drop-offs. So you have to be a little bit careful, especially if it's going to be more of a cloudy whole situation on top of Nevis. Unfortunately, I I kind of am glad that I didn't take another route. I just did the sort of the direct traditional mountain path up Nevis. Because when I got to the top, there was a fair amount of snow. And I don't know where the snow was sitting in relation to the other hikes that you can take up there. But I would say I would have had time to take a more challenging route if I'd had the wherewithal to do it. But I hadn't really thought about that for Nevis because Nevis is the tallest peak and it's a 4,400 feet ascent. So it's a decent hike. It's a decent challenging hike without trying to complicate it with stringing some other things together. And I sort of got let my ego get the better of me on the way down. And I thought it was such a beautifully graded trail coming down that I would run down. And so that's basically what I did. I ran from the peak, Ben Nevis up at the observatory, all the way back down to the Glen Valley. So I trail ran all the way down. I had poles, which was helpful. But I think other climbers may have thought I was a bit nutty, but I made it all the way down in pretty quick time. So I actually finished Nevis in four and a half hours, which was pretty good because it was three hours to the top, and it was a grind and it was wearing on me. And it was even at one point of the zigzags, I thought, this is miserable. How long does this go on for? I don't I don't know if I've got this in me or not. Uh I refueled sort of halfway up the mountain in the pelving rain, but and I'd managed to sort of reinvigorate myself. And then I got back to the to the parking lot, and it was just a drive for the rest of the day. The pressure was off because I'd sort of released the valve on that 72-hour clock because I'd really wanted to enjoy the hikes that I was doing and not feel that constantly. Gotta be here, got to be here, gotta be here. Now I did have to be in the Lake District sometime later that day. So I got off the mountain around, I want to say, like 12:30, one in the afternoon. And I wanted to visit the Ben Nevis distillery and pick up a bottle of singlemore from Ben Nevis. It's sort of my one souvenir from this hiking journey. So I went over to the Ben Nevis distillery and picked up a bottle of singlemore and then thought I'd stop and have a nice lunch in Fort William, but I couldn't figure out where to park or where to stay in Fort William. And before I knew it, I was actually driving out of Fort William away from civilization and back into the the highlands, so there was nowhere to eat. So I didn't really have lunch. Well when I did have lunch, it was a lot later in the afternoon. I'd stopped at a little gas station just outside of Fort William to pick up another couple of snacks. Had a cold samosa, which was a bit weird, but it filled a hole in the belly before the long drive. So you have to drive out of Scotland. It takes a long time on this sort of single-lane highway. I had a bit more of an open road, but not a tremendous amount of open road, and still had to navigate through the highlands. And eventually you get out of the highlands and you hit Glasgow and you can take the motorway for a little bit. And so I'd taken the motorway, the M74, down from Glasgow. And when you get to Penrith, you can take the A66 into the Lake District. And so once you get off of the freeway, actually, I stopped in Carlisle. I remember this is just before getting into the Lake District because I was starving. And so I found a service station and I had a crappy, crappy burger from KFC, like a chicken burger that was nasty. I was so hungry at that point. It was, I just needed to eat anything, anything, and that was seemed fast and convenient. And then I made my way down to Pembrith, and then you're back into like the winding country lanes. And this was a long driving segment. This was like a six-hour driving segment. So it had been a long afternoon. I got off, I left Ben Nevis, you know, around, you know, 12:30, one in the afternoon, and now it was getting into the evening light, and I was going down lots and lots of country lanes to get up into the lake district. And eventually I see the sign for the village that I'm going to be staying in in Nether Wazdale. And it's just this tiny village at the at the sort of the south end of Westwater. The north end of Washwater is Scarfield Pike, the tallest mountain in England that I'd be climbing the next morning. I think I got to my next hotel, which was another inn, the Stre Inn, in this tiny village, and just like a little green, a little more memorial. And I get there at I want to say 738. And I pull into the to the parking lot, and the there are two pubs, one on either side of this green, and it turns out the same owner as both both pubs. And I take my stuff out of my car and I go inside and they show me my room. And there's a car alarm going off outside. I go outside, it's my car alarm. I don't know why it's going off. So I had to spend like 15, 20 minutes trying to figure out why my car alarm kept going off on this rail car. I eventually figured out like the parcel shelf in the trunk had become dislodged, and that was causing the car to think, I don't know what, but somebody was stealing the parcel shelf. But it took me it took me a while to figure out. In the meantime, there's people in the pub and I'm probably annoying the crap out of them with my car rather harm. But eventually I get up into my room and it's that same routine again, right? I've got a prepare, my pack for the next day, make sure I've got water, food, everything's you know, ready to go. And I've just got my hiking clothes set out, got a toiletry bag, and I put everything back in the car. So when I get up in the morning, I'm ready to go. And now my intent for the hike in the morning was again to start at around five. And so set my alarm for 4:30. So I went down back to the bar and I missed the food, but I'd had that delicious KFC earlier. And I thought, you know what, I'll have another pint of stout that'll help me go to sleep. And I'm chatting with a woman at the bar, and she says, Oh, do you want me to make you a pack lunch for tomorrow? So I'm leaving at I'm leaving at 5, and again it's the same routine. What do I do with the key? And she she leaves the bar, she comes back and says, Oh, I'd just talk to the chef, and we can make you a packed lunch now if you want. She was pretty adamant about making sure I had a packed lunch, but I I had food and snacks for the hike the next day, and I didn't want to bother them, so I politely declined. Then I went to bed uh a bit more of a reasonable hour. I want to say it was like maybe 9:30 was how I went up to the room, and I fell asleep pretty easily. It had been a long day, climbing up Nevis and doing that clothes drying routine in my car. So hot and cold in the car in that six-hour drive, so I was pretty spent at the end of day two. So the next morning, just pop my clothes and I go to Scarfield Pike, and this is where the roots really start to get interesting. This is where I really started to make the hike something different from the UK three peaks or the UK six peaks. This is where I was having fun and enjoying the experience with the Black Sheep Circuit. And so this is where we really make or break it. So my intent was to try and hit the Scarfell Massive proper. And I'd wanted to go up a gully called a street gully called the Lord's Rake, climb Scarfell, which is the second tallest mountain, part of the same mountain system, and then go over to via Mikkeldoor up through Scarfell Pike, which is the highest peak, and then come back down and hit another peak called Ling Mao. And so it was trying to do a horseshoe and hit all three peaks. And so when I got there in the morning, the weather was okay. There was no rain, but I could see up in the mountains it was fairly misty and foggy, and the cloud was below the peak level, which I didn't think would be too much of an issue. But I learned my lesson about rain. And so I put my raincoat on in the parking lot and made my way up into the Scarfell massive. And as you make your way up the creek, you sort of crest out into the hollow stones area. I'm looking up at the peaks, I can't see Scarfell at all. I can sort of make out the Scarfell Pike Massive a little bit. You can sort of see the outlines of the mountains of the mist. I decided that I would go up the Mickledore route. And the Mickle route is this sort of narrow, sharp gully. And I was going to make a decision on my way out whether I was going to do the Lord's raid. And if again, there had been a lot of rain, it was very loose. I had concerns about rock slides basically on the screen because of the loose rain. And as I'm coming up through the hollow stones up the Mickledore route, I can't see Scarfell Pike at all. I can't see where to turn off to go up to the Lord's Rake. And so I sort of made a decision that I'm probably not going to be able to do the Lord's Rake just because of a navigational challenge or solve it. And then this feeling in the back of my mind about the moisture in the area. There's a few nasty little drop-offs as you're going up the Lord's Rake as well that in fog and slip conditions can make it a bit riskier. So in instead, I decided to head up Mickleworth. And I really didn't know what to expect of Mickaldor. I hadn't actually watched any videos of Micklore. I just it was a line on a map for me. As I'm coming up to the base of the climb, there's this black sheep just standing there, sort of above me, in the middle of the trail. He's looking down at me. He's quite a stout little fellow. And he's staring down at me like, you know, what do you want? This is my trail. What are you thinking doing here? I'm not gonna move. And so I stood there and I stared at him, and I thought, it's a standoff. It's a black sheep standoff. Always considered myself a little bit of the black sheep of my family, uh, sort of doing a different type of life than you might expect. Emigrating and getting a doctoral degree and other things, going on all these adventures were not really part of the norm of a quiet, humble British life. So I'm standing there staring at the sheep, and so I start walking towards him, and I'm getting closer, and he's not moving, and then he does like this little double take, like, oh, I don't know about this guy. And then he eventually runs off and he runs off into the into the mist up towards Scarfell, and uh I carry about my way, my my way. But so I'm thinking about this whole adventure and what a unique way this is to see the British Isles. I thought, you know what, this is not the UK three peaks, this is not going to be the UK six peaks. If I pull this whole thing off, this is gonna be the black sheep circuit, this is gonna be one for us black sheep, the people who do something different, the people do the push the limit a bit, they go out of their comfort zone to do something, you know, just unique and challenging that other people don't necessarily think about doing. So I made my way up to Mickaldore and it's this gnarly spree run, and the gully is interesting because it's some of these rock outcrops and they're kind of wet and slick, which made me a little bit grateful I didn't go up the Lord's Rake. I'm also a little bit sad that I didn't go up the Lord's Rake. If you're gonna do the Black Sheep Circuit, please, if the weather's if the weather plays ball, you have time if you start five in the morning to make this leg. Trust me, you've got plenty of time to do it. You can go up the Lord's Rake and Scarfell if the weather's right, if you feel safe about doing it. But Mickle Door itself is a bit bit of a fun little scramble, maybe a class two, border class three type scramble. As you're coming up it, you can't see. It's very misty, so you can't really see very much around you. If it's sort of the broadstand to my right, the wind is funneling down you're probably not to climb up the slip rock, but then the wind is like whipping down like you. Then you get up on the ridge and it's a beautiful thing, but then it's a little bit of a navigational challenge as you make your way up over to Scarfell. So I get to to Scarfell, and there's a a couple coming back off of Scarfell. One of them's got one of them inreach things in, they look pretty put together, like they hike a lot. I just let them know, I'm so glad I found the trail because I've just been lost up on the on the uh escarp on a little bit. It's very foggy and you can't see very far. And so I was sort of navigating by phone to get back to the Scarfell Trail. When I got there, I was kind of relieved. And I said to them, you know what? I just came up Mickle Door, and the guy looks at me and he says, rather you than me. All right. So I get up to the peak, and this guy shows up. He's training for the UK three peaks. Good, good for you. I'm I'm gonna be enjoying this circuit a little bit more. I'm gonna go over and do uh Ling Mao as well. On my way back down from Scarfell, another group of guys comes up. They're doing the UK three peaks, this is number two, and they all fire up. Of course, what they're doing is they're just coming straight up the mountain, tagging Scarfell and straight back down again. So not really enjoying the terrain of the mountain, which was my intent, was to do the more challenging routes, make a little bit more of a loop out of it, enjoy the landscape of the Scarfell Massive. And so I went over to the peak of Ling Mao and had a really unique experience going up Ling Mao and enjoying the lack of view over there, too, and having a different type of ascent. So rather than doing the UK three peaks, really the intent of the black sheep is to try and enjoy these really unique landscapes around these tallest peaks and not just like cane in, get up and down and on to the next one. And the issue is when you're doing that, when you're trying to make this time and meet this time pressure, it's always there in the back of your mind the time, the clock is ticking, the clock is ticking, the clock is ticking. It kind of adds a lot of pressure to the hype. And you don't get to quite enjoy the landscape as much. And so we came off a bling mail and then got back down to the trailhead. And the trailhead was full of people, and I was not in the mood for a bunch of people, just so I just threw my stuff in my car and basically left for another long drive. Now, the interesting thing about that whole circuit was only six miles, it took me about three and a half hours. Now it's pretty early in the morning, it's still like nine in the morning by the time I leave Wasdale head. And now I have to drive to Manchester Airport because this isn't the only peak of the day. Now it's the Isle of Man, the logistical challenges of the Isle of Man. So I had a flight at 4.45 in the afternoon that was going to take me over to the Isle of Man. So I had to drive down to Manchester. Now, the good thing about the drive down to Manchester, it's a three-hour drive, and my flight is until 4.45. So it's not like I'm under time pressure. I just have to get to Manchester Airport, get through, you know, the security and stuff, and then get my flight. So drive down there was pretty, pretty uneventful. It was sort of mid-morning, so there wasn't too much traffic. But I couldn't tell from my ticket which terminal I was going to be in. There were three different terminals, I think. So I just let the traffic take me to terminal two, which was a bit of a mistake because my flight was leaving from Terminal Three. I got to Manchester sort of midday. I'm going to say it was like one o'clock. So I had a whole bunch of time. But I was in my stinky, gnarly hiking clothes. I was still a little damp. Everything smelt a bit funky. And my intent for the Isla Man trip was to travel like I didn't want to drag my suitcase with me. So I had to try and fit in a little bit of spare clothes. Like I think I had a shirt and some deodorant and some spare underwear and socks. And actually I fit in a pair of shoes into my backpack with all my hiking gear so that I didn't have to take the suitcase with me. And the problem was when I was going to get to the Isle of Man, my intent was to get a cab to start the hike immediately. And so I had my backpack and I left everything in the parking lot over in Terminal Tools. Just had my backpack. I was hoping they'd let me basically take it on the plane with me. It was a little bit larger than a carry-on, but I was hoping they'll be sympathetic towards my bedraggled self. So I'm spraying deodorant and trying to dry off my hair and look like I'm not a scrading mess. And uh just wearing all my hiking gear because I wanted to get off the plane and just basically hike and didn't have much time because daylight is then going to become an issue. So I get to the check-in. After walking for about half an hour from terminal two to terminal three, because I parked in the wrong terminal, and thinking, oh, when I get back, I'm gonna have to do this 30-minute walk. It was quite a gnarly little hike through the airport, if you like. And eventually made it to the Logan Airlines sort of desk where you check in. And I explained to the check-in guy what I was doing. He said, You know what? You can't take it on the plane menu, but I can slap a VIP sticker on it. So when you get to the plane, they'll put it in the hold. And then when you get off the plane, they'll give it, they'll hand it back to you as you come in off the plane. Excellent. Thank you so much. So then I go and into the airport and I wait for my flight. And my flight's on time. It's in like this weird terminal. You have to sort of walk out onto the plane. It's a propeller plane, it's a relatively small propeller plane, but the weather's fine, no delays. It's a 35-minute flight over to uh to the Isle of Man. And I get off the plane, they give me my bag. Great. And I forward on the way down to Manchester to get a taxi when I hit the airport. So I called them and told them I wanted a taxi and told them what my flight was. And then I said, can I also order another taxi? Because I wanted to do a bit more of a challenging route, but I also needed to get a cab back. And I had arranged for my hotel to be right at the airport. So easy transition in the morning, didn't have to worry about a cab or anything. It's basically I had to get walked from my hotel to the to the the small Ronald's Way airport. So I'd arranged for another cab to pick me up at 9:30, a place called the Bungalow, which was sort of on the way back down from the mountain. Now, if I'd had a little bit more time, I may have done a complete out and back for this one, but I should have shortcut the back because of just because of the timing issue, and I did need to get some sleep before my flight in the morning. And so I got there and my cab was waiting. It was great. And the cab took me about 30 minutes to this small harbour side little village called Laxey. And so on the Isle of Man, the mountain is called Snayfell, and it's 2,037 feet, which just about makes it a mountain. But the Isle of Man is its own separate country and it's part of the British Isles and it's part of this UK six peaks. And I thought it would be cool to do a CETA summit. The technically you can climb Snayfell by driving up to the bungalow, and it's like a 30-minute hike to the top. You start probably at like 1800 feet and then go up to 2,037 feet. It's like a nothing hike, basically, but that didn't seem to fit the challenge. This was about doing a challenging thing. And so I determined to do the sea to summit version. And so basically you start at the beach in Laxia. And I did. I went, got out of my cab and I went down on the beach and I put my feet in the water. So I was touching the sea. And then behind you in the distance, you can see Snayfell. It sort of dominates the landscape, has some radio towels on it. And then just hiked on my way up to um Snayfell, up to the top, through this village, up through these country lanes. And I was making pretty good time. But when I got to the bungalow, I still had to make the final ascent up to Snayfell. I only had 45 minutes there before my cab went. So I sort of power hyped the last little bit and it was really blustery and blowing. But I made it in pretty good time and I got back and my my cab was waiting, which was great. But I hadn't eaten anything since I left the lake district. Maybe I I don't remember. Maybe I grabbed, I think I grabbed something in the airport in Manchester, but now it's like that was like early afternoon, and now it's like nine o'clock at night and things were closing. So that's a cab driver who could stop at a fish and chip shop. And he did, but there was a long line and it wasn't moving and they weren't taking orders. And I got the cab waiting. So I'm like, I'll forget it. I'll just go back to the hotel. So I got back to my hotel, I want to say, around 10 p.m. And I was starving. I hadn't eaten and just hyped a lot this day. The woman that was running the hotel said she'd make me some food. And so she made me like a jacket potato and some beans and stuff. It was a lifesaver. So I ate the jack of potato and then I went to bed, I want to say around 11 p.m. But I had to be up at 4.30 because my flight was at 7 a.m. So I figured I had to be the airport an hour or two before. So I didn't get too much sleep, but got up at 4.30 and I walked over to the airport. And I got to the airport like 5:15, 5.20. Airport was closed. I couldn't even get in the airport to hang out outside. And it was blustery, windy, and cold that morning. I just had the the pack on my back basically, but I did get into the airport and then gorged myself on some some pastries and stuff at the cafe inside the airport, which was open, and took the short flight back to Manchester. So I got up at 4:30, got my 7 a.m. flight, and got back to Manchester around 8 o'clock and got off the plane. And I had that horrible 30-minute walk back to my back to my car in the wrong terminal and done my stuff in the car and then began the journey out to Snowdonia. And I was feeling tired. This was now getting into day four. I've climbed five mountains and it's starting to wear. I'm feeling really tired on the way out to Snowdonia. Now it's only a two and a half hour drive. Made a little detour to see the Wrexham football ground and got a sausage buddy at the at the turf parking lot that caused a little bit of navigational issues, couldn't quite figure out how to get there. I got a little bit confused. And then I'm taking the freeway out to Carnarvon, the North Wales Expressway. As I'm driving along, I'm feeling super tired. My eyes are sort of drifting off, like it's catching up on the jet lag and the hike in. But I did eventually make it to Snowdonia. And again, it's pay for parking up in Snowdonia. And I had paid in advance for parking at Penny Pass. But because I changed my plans the week before, I couldn't reserve parking at Penny Pass. So I was kind of winging it and hoping for the best. So I get into Lamberis, no parking, bunch of people, real busy. It's Saturday morning at this point. People are out for the weekend. And I get to Penny Pass and it's packed and crowded. Loads and loads of people. I have to go past Penny Pass, down the hill, and I found some more pay for parking down the hill, but it's now it's adding elevation, and I am feeling really tired. And I want to do not just go up and down Snowden like people do in the UK six peaks. You know, run up it and run down it, probably in the in the early morning or the night if they're doing the UK six peaks. I wanted to do the Snowden horseshoe, which is a much more dramatic and a much more interesting hike. But it was kind of blustery and windy. Now it was a nice day in that there was no rain, but the wind was pretty pretty, it was picking up pretty much. I was feeling a little tired, and so I've got my stuff ready in my car. Again, a no time pressure day after this. There wasn't another hike this day. It was going to be the Snowden horseshoe. And so I get up to the parking lot, it's packed. There's so many people around. I'm feeling kind of grumpy and tired and sleepy. And I start making my way up the pink track, which is a more direct route up to the up to the mountain. And what I want to do is this gnarly ridgeline called Crib Gogh. But I was warned not to do it if it's too windy or if it's raining. And I was so sleepy and grumpy. I got to the crib gok and I'm looking up and I still want to do it. And I sat there for like five minutes pondering about when to do it, if I should do it. But the wind was really blowing, and I felt my legs were a little achy. And I decided to skip crib gok. But if you're doing the black sheep circuit, do crib gok. If the wind isn't blowing, or it's not raining or too much, and you've got you've got a good day for it, please do crib gok. It was part of the intent all along. So I skipped crib gok and I went up the pig pass. But I'm telling you, there are so many people on this mountain. I'm feeling miserable, and all the people are making me even grumpier because now you've got to get out of their way and navigate up through the crowds of people. And then the miners track, sort of the easier tourist way, joins the pig track, and so there's even more people. And then when you get up to the ridgeline, there's the Snowdon Railway, and more people are dumping off onto the ridge, and there's just so many people up there. It was horrible. It was again cloudy and windy and misty. And I wasn't enjoying my morning. But that's part of the trial and tribulation of it, right? You've got to roll with it. I decided to drop off the back end, and I was going to do at least the second half of the horseshoe and do E Louis, which is another famous ridgeline, not quite as gnarly as Crib Gok, but still a scramble and a climb. And as soon as I got off the peak and dropped down onto the back side, taking the sort of the less popular side, the crowd thin down, taking the Watkins path down, and sort of breathing a sigh of relief. The crowds have dissipated. It feels a lot better. There's still some people around, but it felt a lot less crowded, a lot, a lot more serene and gentle. And so come off of the Watkins path. And then you're at Eloide, and you climbed up Eloide and really started enjoying the day a lot more away from all of the crowds. Then eventually I make my way back down to Penny Pass. I thought, that's it. I've done the UK six peaks, but I haven't done the black sheet circuit because I've got another day of fun to come. I've decided to attack on another classic British hype. And I'd wanted to do this one for a while, but I thought I'd done the UK six peaks. I'm going to celebrate. So I go into this bar cafe and I get an ice cream. Took a while to cue for it, and I'm still feeling tired, but I thought I've got to have something, like a little, a little treat before my drive across Wales, which was what was facing me that afternoon. And now it's like one in the afternoon. I didn't really want to stop and eat, but I did want to do something to commemorate the six peaks being completed. So I got an ice cream and I walked out of the cafe and I walked down the back down the trail back to my car, which was not parked at Penny Pass. It was another 20-minute hike. I ate my ice cream and I got to the car. I just collapsed beside the car, like just getting over the hike. I just sit down, like chilling on the grass, like trying to call off and hydrate and stuff before the next drive and sort of strip out of my hiking clothes a bit and put on some regular clothes to begin the drive across Wales. So that was going to be my afternoon was driving basically from the north of Wales down to the south of Wales to a place called the Breckham Beacons, where I was going to do the Penny Fan horseshoe. Now, Penny Fan is a decent-sized mountain. And it's used, and actually all of the Brecom Beacons are used for military training because it's kind of a harsh environment in the winter. It's very exposed. There's not really any too many forests around. And there's a little selection, military selection thing called the fan dance, where you go basically you go up and over Penny Fan, then back again, which I thought was pretty cool, but also sounded a bit boring. There is a horseshoe route, the penny fan horseshoe that takes you all the way around this beautiful ridge line. And that's what I thought I would do. I'd go down and do the penny horseshoe. And if you do the penny horseshoe, you can hit ten named mountains around the horseshoe. And so I drove all afternoon through Wales and just small windy roads the whole way. It took me like three and a half hours to do 130 miles, just winding through the hills of Wales. And I don't think I got to my hotel until 9 p.m. It was in the town of Frick Howell, place called the Manor E. And it was sort of this old manor house set on the side of a valley out in the brick and beacons. And so I get there and I check in and I ask if the kitchen is open. It's oh no, sorry, it's closed. But there's an Indian restaurant just down the road. So I hadn't eaten, I was hungry, and I was tired, and so I put my stuff in the hotel and I drove down to the local Indian restaurant. It was alright. It was food, it was pretty good, but it was late at night, it was like 10:30 by the time I got back to the hotel and just collapsed on the bed. I didn't get my pack ready or anything. I just had everything in the room with me. And then I woke up, I decided to have a little bit of a line. This was going to be my last day. I thought I'd have a little bit of a sleep before the next day. So and I'd have breakfast in the hotel at breakfast time, which was 8 a.m. So I slept in a little bit later, got some nice rest, which was much needed, and I went down for breakfast, and they were cooking the breakfast to order. It took them 45 minutes to get my breakfast ready, which kind of was a little bit stressful when you're on the time limit. Although I wasn't really that much on a time limit, except I wanted to be out in the mountains. And I still, after climbing the Breckham Beacons, my intent was to drive back to back to London, back to the airport, ready for my transatlantic flight the next day. So I didn't really get out and into the Breckham Beacons until sort of 9.30, and there's a fair amount of people out there already. I was going to do the extended horseshoe version. So again, this isn't just up and down a mountain on a time crunch. This is about enjoying the more challenging, loop version of these hikes. And that's what the Black Sheep Circuit's all about. It's not about taking the easy route. It's about challenging routes. It's about a story, really, about a story of a day that can take you through an enjoyable day hike where you can experience the landscape. You're not rushing through it, you're being part of it, you're feeling what the what it's like to do it and not have that constant, I've got to make the time, I gotta make the time in the back of your head. So I got to the New Ed reservoir and I decided to do sort of an extended version of the horseshoe and try and get as many peaks as I could. So the circuit out of range was actually 10 peaks. And it was a beautiful day. Just a wonderful, the best day of all. It was almost a clear blue sky, it was warm with a gentle breeze. It was a beautiful, beautiful day. And so I went out and I did the full horseshoe and just had a really nice experience going around this beautiful bowl and up into the different peaks around the bowl. And so I think I was out there for maybe four and a half, five hours doing like an 11-mile circuit of the Brick and Beacons. I come back to the parking lot and I sit down just to relax. I realize I was sunburnt in the polar opposite of the last few days of wind and rain. And I hadn't put any sunscreen on because it was England and it I was there. To be honest, I was anticipating rain that day too, even though it was nice when I started. And I'd got sunburnt, which was different. And I'd done it. I'd done this amazing adventure five days around the British Isles, seeing some of the most spectacular mountain scenery you can get in this in these countries. And sort of the big sigh of relief. And just my car was a wreck. It was full of stinky socks and shoes and clothes. Highly recommend you take two pairs of shoes because your shoes will get wet if you do this. But it was done, this amazing adventure over. I think we'd I think a little over 60 miles. Doesn't sound like a lot. But then when you pair that with 23,000 feet of elevation gain, and you've traveled all over the country, we're doing all this driving through this beautiful scenery. Just an amazing adventure. So if you've got five days to spare, this is totally doable. You can climb the six highest peaks in the British Isles and then top it off with Penny Fen, which by the way is the highest peak in the southern British Isles. I think that's defined as a line somewhere south of Snowdonia, but in the entire southern British Isles, this is the highest peak. So it wasn't like I was chickening out or taking an easy, easy one, the one for the team. This was climbing another mountain, but then 10 peaks all the way around the horseshoe. So really making it a challenging hike. In total, I did 22 peaks. So really a massive, massive journey. And my American friends, bless them, thought I was just going to climb a few little hills when they saw the elevation. I kept reassuring them, you know, I'm going from sea level up to 3,000, 4,000 feet. I'm not starting up in the mountains and climbing up up to 10,000 feet, which is, you know, it's also two, three thousand feet of climbing typically. So every day was a a day. But I'd love for this circuit to take off. I put out this new uh hiking challenge for people to consider as a new way to see the British Isles, the black sheep circuit. Now off you pop.