The Paddy Buckley Round                                    The UK Big 3 Rounds

Also known as the Welsh Classical Round, this is the Snowdonia equivalent of the BGR and generally acknowledged to be tougher by at least an hour.  It is a circuit of some 61 miles with 28000' ascent taking in 47 tops most of which are in the well-known areas of Snowdon, the Carneddau, the Glyderau and the Moelwynion.  Paddy Buckley devised the round with helpful comments from Chris Brasher, but Wendy Dodds was the first to complete it in 1982 in a time of 25 hours 38 minutes.  The first sub-24 hour round was on 30 July 1985 by Martin Stone in 23-26.  Although everyone will aim to complete the circuit in sub-24 hours no time limit is stipulated.  The route may be started from any point and completed in either a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

Route

Schedule

Click on the icon to download summit details and a sub-24 hour schedule.  This is in an Excel spreadsheet format that can be viewed and printed or, alternatively, there is the option to save the file so that it can then be customised to your personal pace and start time - see the notes at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Registrations

To obtain official details on the PBR and to register successful completions email: paddy.buckley@lineone.net

Registered Completions - Paddy Buckley’s schedule of known completions (updated each year-end)

Links and Further Information

□   A Long Day in Snowdonia  -  how the PBR came about.  Paddy Buckley’s original article published in Compass Sport in 1983

□   The UK Big 3 records – an overview of the PBR, BGR and CRR.   

□   Bob Wightman’s PBR web pages – provides a brief route description and schedules for different starting points and completion times.

□   The Welsh Three Thousand Foot Challenges, Roy Clayton and Ronald Turnbull (1997) Contains a chapter on the PBR route.

□   Paddy Buckley Round, 1:40,000 map (Harvey Map Services, 2011)