Hikers raising money for a terminally ill friend say they faced booing and abuse after bypassing a huge queue to reach the summit on Mount Snowdon. Rick Thiedeman, 34, and Jamie Richardson, 32, were attempting the Three Peaks Challenge, which involves summitting the UK's three highest peaks in a set time, and passed climbers queuing for selfies. They said the backlash was so bad that one individual tried to physically block Richardson from continuing his ascent.
After sharing footage of the encounter on Instagram, with the caption 'Imagine climbing 3 mountains in 3 countries only to get boo'd when you go for the final trig point!', he said other Three Peaks challengers contacted him to report similar experiences while attempting the event. The pals, from Lincolnshire, reached the Welsh mountain in the early hours of Sunday over the bank holiday weekend after already tackling Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike as part of the endurance challenge.
When they arrived at the summit of the Welsh mountain, they found a large number of people waiting to take photographs, creating what they estimated to be a 40-minute wait. Aware that every minute counted towards their challenge time, the pair continued towards the top rather than joining the back of the queue. The official Three Peaks Challenge says that participants 'can bypass any queue to reach the summit area' because of the time limit, The Times reported.
According to Thiedeman, members of the crowd booed the pair and shouted 'shame' as they made their way through. Speaking to The Times, he described the atmosphere as 'medieval'. 'I found it to be hostile, demeaning, belittling. It's upsetting, is what it is. I can't fathom booing somebody who is clearly doing something to raise money … I don't think the top of a mountain is any place for booing to be heard,' he said. 'It should be nothing but cheers and support for everybody on that summit … The only person who did wish me well done was the man on the trig point himself.'
Richardson told the BBC: 'I was getting booed and then there was a gentleman who was at the top, who had just had his photo taken and he physically tried to stop me.' He said he heard someone say 'you should be ashamed of yourself'. Their challenge was undertaken to raise money for Thiedeman's former school friend, Tom Hynes, who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2023 at the age of 31. Since then, his condition has deteriorated and he has been given a terminal prognosis.
Explaining their motivation, Thiedeman told The Times: 'His family would like to hold a funeral but funeral costs, coupled with care costs, looks like that might not be something they can do. So we decided to go on a hike to raise as much money as possible.' He said he wore a T-shirt displaying a photograph of Hynes using breathing equipment and felt this made it obvious why they were doing the hike. Thiedeman contrasted the incident with the encouragement he experienced elsewhere during the challenge. Recalling his time on Ben Nevis, he said there was 'lots of camaraderie, everybody wishing one another "well done, bravo"'.
