A Mountain to Climb with Horatio’s Garden

This is a charity founded by the parents of Horatio Chapple to provide outdoor space at spinal injury rehabilitation units throughout the country. Horatio had the idea when volunteering at his local unit during the school holidays. Tragically, Horatio’s life was cut short in 2011 at just 17, when his camp was attacked by a polar bear whilst on an expedition to Svalbard. There followed an outpouring of love and goodwill, with donations flooding in for his garden to be created. Since then the charity has raised funds to open gardens in eight of the 11 NHS rehab units in the UK. The mission is to open gardens in all 11 NHS centres to ensure that no-one has to go through a life-changing spinal injury and spend months in hospital without having access to such outdoor space and the therapeutic benefits that space will bring.

The challenge was a hike to the top of any of the highest peaks in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales. We chose to climb Yr Wyddfa. It is a peak I have never climbed and as a Welshman it seemed something I needed to rectify. Soon we had a team consisting of Joy Davies, Louise Nettle, Beth Evans, Cameron Findley-Smith; Jess Bonniger and Morgan Edwards from RWK Goodman. And as if that was not enough a good friend Amanda Harris, herself living with spinal cord injury and a supporter of Horatio’s Garden and a trustee of the Rookwood SpUR charity, let it be known that she, too, wanted to get to the top despite being wheelchair dependent. She was gathering her own group to support her in the ascent and asked if we would join in. Challenge accepted.

Sunday 19th of April dawned with a blanket of mist draped over the grey mountains surrounding Beddgelert where our CPU team had lodged the night before. The drive to our meeting point in Llanberis was one of the most magical I can recall as the mist burned off revealing Arthurian lakes and towering mountains all around. In all some 20 of us set off taking it in turns to get Amanda and her chair to the top of the mountain. Six people would take their places around the chair and support Amanda who had to do her role all by herself. We would tag in and out at rest breaks to keep the whole thing moving. It may not surprise you that it is not a nice, smooth, paved pathway to the top of Yr Wyddfa. There are boulders and streams and long sets of steps hewn from the rock to navigate. It was hard going in the blazing sunshine but we reached the halfway point where the train reaches middle station and we stopped for a while to recover and meet with supporters who took the leisurely way up.

The second part of the walk was more climbs and rocks and crevices, particularly when you near the end and there are jagged outcrops to navigate to the short steps up to the triangulation point at the summit. Waiting to reach the top was a long queue of all the hikers who had passed us on the way up as they waited to get to the top for that selfie moment. However in one of the most charitable gestures I have seen in a long time, we were able to queue jump to reach the small plateau just below the trig point and were clapped all the way. A moment that would make even the toughest person’s top lip wobble. Amanda had done it and we were all delighted to be there with her as the Horatio’s Garden flag was raised over the mountain.

Now for the small matter of getting back down again and a beer to celebrate. In all an eight hour climb but what a wonderful day. A not insignificant amount of money was raised for Horatio’s Garden. Now Joy, about that dragon boat race….