On the 28th of June, 2024, I embarked on a memorable road trip to Snowdon with two friends, all in the name of charity. Our mission was to climb Mount Snowdon through the night in aid of Marie Curie to raise vital funds for their night staff.
Our vehicle of choice for this trip was a sleek and futuristic road trip in a Tesla Model S, which we hired from EVision Electric Vehicles. The Model S was a perfect fit for our trip, boasting an impressive range of 360 miles, ensuring we had enough juice to get us there without too many charge stops!
Our excitement was uncontrollable as we picked up the car. The friendly folks at EVision gave us a thorough handover, explaining all the fancy features of the Tesla…however we regretted not giving the tutorial our full attention as this became a humorous event at our first charging stop.
We pulled into Keele Services for our initial charge, a convenient point where we planned to grab some dinner while the Tesla powered up. This was our first time charging an electric vehicle, so naturally, we had a bit of a learning curve. We approached the car, confident and ready, only to be stumped by one simple task: opening the charge port.
After several attempts of poking and prodding the giant touchscreen, the front trunk popped open, then the boot, and at one point, the interior lights turned into a bit of a disco show. It was quite the spectacle for the other EV drivers at the station! Finally, we stumbled upon the correct button and triumphantly opened the charge port.
Feeling accomplished, I hopped out and grabbed the charging lead, only to realise it didn’t quite reach the car. Apparently, my parking skills left something to be desired. We had a good laugh, I jumped back into the Tesla, reversed a bit, and this time parked correctly. The lead reached, we plugged in, and we were officially charging.
With the Tesla safely powering up, we headed inside Keele Services on the M6 for a well-deserved meal. The quick pit stop gave us time to relax and recharge ourselves, ready for the next leg of our journey to Snowdon.
On the onwards journey we found ‘caraoke’, Tesla’s very own karaoke, to make the journey more entertaining. You can find our voices of angels appear in our tiktok video we have made of the journey here.
Knowing there were a lot less charging stations around where we were staying in North Wales, we headed up the motorway and treated ourselves to a little top up charge at Warrington Superchargers. The great thing about the car is that it came with free supercharging at all Tesla charging stations, so this really was worth the extra 10 min stop!
We continued our journey and finally reached our apartment, where we had agreed with the owner that we could charge the car from the mains. Although a lot slower for charging, we left the car on charge overnight and managed to get ourselves an extra 50 miles in the ‘tank’ by the morning.
We set off on our charity night hike that evening, starting from the National Slate Museum, in Llanberis. Alongside around 200 other hikers, all having raised hundreds each for Marie Curie, we went off in waves, with our group leaving at 1am. Snowdon is easy they said… well within 10 minutes we started to regret not doing much training! The main preparations we had done were what snacks we were taking on our trip, not thinking much about the fitness side of things! We finally reached the Summit at around 4.30am where we were met with a beautiful sunrise…hidden completely by clouds and rain…but we guess if we could see it, it would have been beautiful!
Now for the trek back down the mountain and we are not sure if perhaps going up wasn’t so bad, the way down seemed harder on the legs! We started to consider our life choices at this point as we wrapped ourselves in waterproof ponchos, walked through the wind and rain, and finally at 7.30am got back to the cafe at the National Slate Museum where we were met with the amazing volunteers from Marie Curie, who provided us with hot drinks and pastries.
We absolutely cannot fault the Marie Curie team and how well organised the whole event was from the minute we arrived until we got back from the hike the next morning.
The road trip home was a little less excitable and the music was a lot quieter! It was a great relief to be able to take it in turns to drive and the others to sleep, especially as there were heated seats in the front and the back of the car.
All in all, we had a fantastic weekend, made even more enjoyable and comfortable with the amazing Tesla from EVision Electric Vehicles. Would highly recommend to anybody looking at going on a road trip in a Tesla and looking for comfort, style and looking after the environment!
