Coleg Llandrillo, Coleg Menai, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Busnes@LlandrilloMenai logosColeg Llandrillo, Coleg Menai, Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor and Busnes@LlandrilloMenai logos

Dolgellau Sports and Outdoor Activities students walk the Mary Jones Trail

The outdoor recreation students at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor were involved in a busy end of term challenge. They decided to walk the Mary Jones Trail, 28 miles from Llanfihangel y Pennant to Bala raising funds for the South Snowdonia Mountain Rescue team. Nerys Siddall from Byd Mary Jones World came to college beforehand to give an insightful talk on the story of Mary Jones added with her role at the museum.

At the start of the walk they met Nick Young and Neil Champion from the mountain rescue team who explained about their work and dealing with different emergency incidents on Cader Idris. The group then made their way to Dol Idris where they met Rhys Gwynn, Snowdonia National Park warden for the Dolgellau area. Rhys gave an interesting talk on his work - mapping specific landmarks on Cader Idris with their Welsh place names, developments in planting native flora and fauna and monitoring their growth as well as explaining the impact of Covid on visitor numbers to the locality.The outdoor group then headed north east towards Brithdir.

Huw Evans, a student on the Sports and Outdoor Activities course said

” I enjoyed walking with the group and showing them the different landmarks around Brithdir where I live”

They had an early start on the second day walking through Dolfeili to Llanuwchllyn. As they made their way to Bala, Arwel Morris Snowdonia National Park Bala warden was waiting for them to discuss the development of flood defences on the edge of Llyn Tegid.

Having walked in the footsteps of Mary Jones, the group all agreed it is a lovely walk through our beautiful countryside and they discussed how her commitment to buying a welsh bible led to the setting up of the Bible Society and its impact on the wider world. This was also an opportunity after covid restrictions to be out and about in the local area and in particular meeting the wardens and members of the mountain rescue team on route.

Jess Day a student on the Sports and Outdoor Activities course said

“ My family are originally from Llanfihangel y Pennant and I found the talks most interesting with mountain rescue and the wardens, seeing what work they do in different areas of the national park”.

To learn more about this course, click here

Pagination