Mandem Meetup X Vintage Threads - Breaking Barriers Campaign

16th of December 2021, In Collaboration with Vintage Threads, 6 of the mandem climbed mount snowdon one of the UK’s highest mountains in hopes of clearing all our minds ahead of the new year. While Vintage Threads joined us to raise awareness and support the cause, we also helped shoot a campaign for some of their main The North Face outerwear pieces and the continued push to build the relationship between sustainability within vintage clothing and kindness towards the environment as well as being kind to the mind.
 

For some of the men it was the first time meeting up, for a few of the men It was the first time climbing a mountain as big as Snowdon but spirits were high. We had the weather on our side as we embarked on our journey, there was no better day for it. It is always a challenge to be having to climb a mountain and film content as well as shooting pictures at the same time so our speed wasn’t the best but we were also having a lot of meaningful conversations as it was also one of the first times that we had people come along from different cities so there was a lot to talk about.

As we were moving through the first quarter of the trip we were overlooking the famous Llyn Llydaw Lake, Jamie touched base with everyone and one of the lads said he had never seen anything so picturesque so clearly and you sometimes forget that in our everyday lives especially in the big cities all we see is concrete and straight lines so to see something so you can easily be taken back when you get exposed to the nature in its fullest form. Halfway through we started to encounter people travelling back down and they said that it was too snowy towards the peak and three other sets of people told us we would not be able to get to Summit las it will be too slippery and there will be a straight drop down the mountain, we decided to see for ourselves.

As all the hikers came down past us in full gear and spikes, we had Lamin doing us proud in his jeans and Nike Airforce Trainers. We did not let anyone knock us, we were confident we were going to reach summit. As we got closer one of the greatest people we have met so far on our travels had reached summit and came back down and stopped for a chat with us. His was called Mel, he did it in the shorts, hiking boots and a few cans of Stella. We asked him, 
Do you do this a lot? As he seemed to get up to the top confidently with no problem and everyone else turned back but we soon found out that this was his first time in his life climbing a mountain and that he tried the day before but didn’t make it to the top but he wouldn’t let that face him and tried again and made it so he treated himself to a few beers after. Mel gave us all a push and his spirit is what we live for at Mandem Meetup, that no matter what age you are is never too late to get out in the outdoors and accomplish goals. The icy path was quite a few inches deep with snow and it got more slippery the further we walked up but because of people that had walked in front of us we followed in their footsteps. We reached summit at 1PM, the sense of achievement was immense. The view from the top was cloudy but as Jamie took us through our offerings to the mountain we took a minute to take it all in and then we all embraced our brothers as we started to descend from the mountain.

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