Chris Brasher's idea of a decent little walk to fill a spare weekend is a three-day trek in the heart of Snowdonia, starting and ending at railway stations and passing among the great peaks and ridges of five mountain ranges.
"It takes you through some of the most magnificent scenery in Britain," he says. "And you can expand it to include the summit of Snowdon, for example, and the Carneddau ridge in the north. There's a whole set of wonderful variations."
He did it his last September with Oboe, a group whose name was inspired by a remark by Bill Tilman - a famously nonchalant pre-war climber, who claimed that "any worthwhile expedition can be organised on the back of an envelope".
Nowadays, Brasher is probably best known for the company that makes Britain's best-selling walking boots. But he was also one of the "rabbits" who paced Sir Roger Bannister to the first sub-four-minute mile in 1954, won a gold medal at the 1956 Olympics and founded the London Marathon in 1981.
For this Oboe excursion, he met eight friends at Llandudno Junction and took a train south to Harlech, breaking the journey for a spin on the narrow-gauge slate railway at Blaenau Ffestiniog. Next morning, they looked round Harlech castle before climbing the northern tip of the Rhinog range. By the time they were descending a gorge on the far side, they were talking so hard they took a wrong turning.
"We ended up more or less swinging from tree to tree, crossing the river at least three times before emerging into lovely country above Maentwrog. We stayed at the Grapes, where the bar food is good and one of the barmaids is quite spectacular."
Next day, a guide, Rob Collister, took them through a series of huge chambers made by slate miners in the mountain of Moel-yr-hydd. "It's quite amazing to think they carved these vast caverns working in pairs with a candle, a rope and a bit of gunpowder," says Brasher. "You could get St Paul's into some of them.
"We eventually emerged about 300ft higher than where we'd gone in, so it was the first time in my life I've climbed a mountain from the inside."
From here, they followed paths through disused quarries below the ridge of the Moelwyn range, down to the banks of Lleyn Gwynant, and along one of the most beautiful valleys in Wales, where Brasher used to have a cottage, to the famous Pen-y-Gwyrd Hotel, the training base for the 1953 Everest expedition.
"Don't expect phones in every room.Don't expect TV," he says. "Do expect good beer, wholesome food, and a marvellous atmosphere. It's one of the great inns of this country, and the Everest team still have their reunions there."
From the back, an old miner's track leads towards the Glyders, a range of mountains strewn with great slabs of sharp stone, and past the shark's-fin ridge of Tryfan, to a climbers' hut at Helyg in the next valley. Here Brasher dropped out to keep an appointment and the rest crossed back to the Conwy valley railway via the reservoir of Llyn Cowl.
"We had an average age of over 60 and a large number of artificial hips, so we took just about the easiest way, " says Brasher. "But you can easily expand it. according to the fitness of your party. to take in some of the summits. Some people cross them all from the Carneddau to Cadr Idris, 135 miles in three days."
Brasher is now 71 and retains a robust attitude to walking. "I do it whatever the weather - you've just got to take whatever it chucks at you. We had a an Oboe walk in the Lake District recently and, on the first day, there was nothing but mist and rain. But the next two days were beautiful and we were bathing in mountain tarns."
What Brasher has in his rucksack
Chris Brasher is a lifelong enemy of weight, especially if he has to carry it. For the three-day walk in Snowdonia, he took a 35-litre rucksack containing no more than 10lbs of kit. His only luxury was a John Buchan paperback.
"I was wearing light weight trousers, a top made of a synthetic material that wicks sweat off your skin, and a Gore-Tex anorak when it rained. In my bag, I had lightweight waterproof trousers and, for the evenings, a dry pair of socks, underwear, trousers, shirt and sweater.
He wore a pair of his own company's Hillmaster boots. His change of footwear was a pair of Nike road-running shoes, "because they're incredibly light".
The only other things in the rucksack were a lightweight Thermos, a Petzl head torch, a small camera, a map and compass."
His other way of avoiding weight is planning accommodation carefully so he doesn't have to carry food or a sleeping bag. "One of my principles now is that you must have good hostelries, with decent food and drink."
The practicals
For information including transport and accomodation in Snowdonia, call the Tourist Information Centres at Betws y Coed (01690 710426) and Dolgellau (01341 422888, closed Tues/Wed, October - Easter). OS Landranger maps (1 inch to 1 mile) 115 (Snowdon) and 124 (Dolgellau), price £5.25. OS Outdoor Leisure maps (2 inches to 1 mile), 17 (Snowdonia - Snowdon and Conwy Valley), 18 (Snowdonia - Harlech, Porthmadog and Bala) and 23 (Snowdonia - Cader Idris and Lake Bala), £6.50. A good description of the route through Snowdonia is in The Cambrian Way, by Tony Drake, published by the author at £5.50, from bookstores, outdoor shops or the Ramblers Association, 1-5 Wandsworth Road, London, SW8 2XX (70p p&p).
