Snowboarding vicar to hit slopes at every UK indoor snow centre in 24 hours

A snowboarding vicar will swap prayers for big air on a 24-hour charity pilgrimage around Britain’s snowdomes.

Rev Steven Young, of St Michael and All Angels church in Mill Hill, will drive almost 500 miles on a route from Hemel Hempstead to Glasgow to complete a run down the slopes of each of the UK’s six official snow centres in a single day.

The 37-year-old, who dubs himself “vicar by day, snowboarder by day off”, hopes to raise thousands of pounds for the North London Hospice, where he is a volunteer chaplain.

He said: “I have a big love for snow domes. For £20 you can get out on the snow, which is brilliant, and they helped me a lot. So visiting them all in one day is a bit of a pilgrimage, for want of a better word.

“Since I found out the Hemel Hempstead dome opened at 7am in the morning, and being geeky about travel and challenges, I tried for a few years to work out if it is possible to visit every single UK snowdome in one day.

"It’s more comical than endurance. I will literally be running out of the car, running into the ski centre, getting my lift pass, doing one run, then running back into the car again.”

The challenge is next Tuesday, February 26, and the centres are donating free lift passes (see tinyurl.com/snowvicar).