We made it!! We climbed the three highest mountains in Britain in 22 hours 47 minutes and 4 seconds!

And this is our story...

23/08/09: 17:00 – And we’re off. We have just begun the challenge by leaving the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel and beginning the climb up Ben Nevis. The rain has become very heavy, but we can’t say we weren’t expecting it! We are all exited but very nervous; the last six months of preparations and fund-raising boils down to the next 24 hours!

17:51 – We have completed just under half of the first climb and the weather has really taken a turn for the worse; the rain has become torrential and the wind has become so strong that the team is struggling to even talk to one another.

19:02 – It wasn’t pretty, but we have reached the top of Ben Nevis in great time; just 2 hours and 2 minutes! Our head to toe waterproofs haven’t stopped us getting very cold and wet so we are all quite keen to get back to the warmth of the car.

20:25 – The weather finally begun to clear during our descent which meant we were able run a lot of the way. This meant that we made a very quick descent of 1 hour and 23 minutes, giving us a total time for Britain’s highest mountain of 3 hours 25 minutes! We were all very pleased with our time and we were sure everything was going well, but when Andy met us at the bottom to tell us that the car wasn’t starting, we all began to panic! So we’re sitting in the youth hostel, frantically looking for someone with jump leads, getting warm and waiting for the breakdown truck to arrive.

21:01 – Ok, we’re back on the road. We explained our situation to the AA and they sent a local contractor to help us as it was so urgent. This means we’ve only lost just over half an hour due to the breakdown. Now, we’re going to catch some well earned rest before Scafell Pike early tomorrow morning.

24/08/09: 01:36 – We have just been woken up by the drivers. A quick glance at the clock told us it was far too early to be getting up, especially as we are climbing England’s highest mountain this morning! We are going to arrive in around half an hour so better get changed and prepared for the second climb. Already the muscles are beginning to ache a little.

02:04 – We just arrived at Seathwaite Farm, stumbled out the car and began our climb up Scafell Pike. We have just begun to walk the first flat section of the mountain. It is the middle of the night, freezing, pouring with rain, windy and misty but we have no choice but to brave it and carry on. The only things we can see is each others head torches and the very eerie reflection coming for the eyes of many mountain sheep.  

02:56 - It is still the middle of the night and the fog is becoming thicker. We can see so little that we have been relying on the river to guide us up the mountain.

04.24 – The last hour and a half has been hell! We have managed to gain no more than 200 metres as the weather became so bad. The visibility closed in to the stage where we couldn’t see our own feet and our head torches were just lighting up mist in front of our face. The path through this section of the mountain is relatively undefined which resulted in us straying a long way from our planned route. Our original plan to follow the river became useless as we began to track up one of the many estuaries in completely the wrong direction. Then when trying to return to the path we couldn’t find it at all. We felt completely helpless! It was so frustrating knowing that the clock was still ticking whilst we were making no progress due to impossible navigation. We have finally managed to get ourselves back on course and hopefully will begin to make good progress again, but understandable we are all very demoralised having lost so much time. 

05:51 – We have got to the final, steepest ascent of Scafell. The scree is very loose underfoot which makes this probably the hardest part of the entire challenge. On top of this, we are all starting to feel the pain of the last 13 hours. Jonty has called the team to stop and stated that he doesn’t think he can make it any further; the pain in his legs is very clear in his facial expression. We agree to take a 5 minute break which we use to get our breath back and motivate Jonty by letting him know that we are going to finish this as a team! It is during hardest parts of the challenge that we reflect on exactly what we are putting ourselves through this for and the thought of the children we are supporting has fired new energy into the team, and we’re off again! 

06:03 – We have just reached the top of Scafell Pike in a time of 3 hours and 59 minutes. Obviously, this isn’t a time to write home about but considering the events of the morning it’s not as bad as it could have been. We can still do this in 24 hours, its just going to be a lot tighter now! As for the weather up here, it’s no better than we had up in Scotland: cold, wet and foggy. We haven’t seen a single soul other than each other for 4 hours, although there aren’t many as mad as we are!

07:14 – We have been racing down this one. The lost time is on the back of our minds and we have pushing ourselves to make up for it. Unfortunately, Tom has pushed himself a bit too hard and has taken quite a heavy fall. He has put a huge cut into his shin and is struggling to walk. We are going to take a 5 minute break and hope he makes a quick recovery or this could be over right here!


07:58 – We are back in the car and on our way to Snowdon after what seemed like forever on Scafell. Tom grit his teeth and took some considerable pain to make it down the second half of the descent. Jonty seemed to acquire a new lease of energy and made it down with very little problems. Joe, who has had no problems until this point has just been hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion, and has vomited multiple times into a carrier bag!

10:32 – The anticipation and strange hour means that we are all failing to get any sleep, this is leading to increasing fatigue which will not be of any help when we are up against the clock on Snowdon. We have also been stuck behind a tractor for about 10 minutes on roads too bendy to overtake.

12.30 – Ok, this is it, the final climb. We have arrived at the Pen-y-pass car park with 4 hours and 30 minutes to climb up and down Snowdon. For a change the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the mountain has other walkers climbing it.

12.52 – We have only been climbing for 20 minutes but already our legs are screaming for us to stop. Joe has now not eaten for around 8 hours as his stomach is refusing to accept anything. It’s hard to imagine being able to take much more of this, but again, we have little choice, we have to make it!

13.45 – The final peak is in sight. For the past 50 minutes, none of us have spoken a word. We have been focusing solely on getting to the top of this mountain. Once again we are drawing determination from the thought of Chailey Heritage and the change we hope to make; it truly justifies this pain!

14.01 – Our focus has paid off and we have reached the top of Snowdon in 1 hour and 31 minutes. We are struggling to work out how we managed it! The thought of no more climbing is an incredible one; we’re not finished, but it sure feels like we close with just under 3 hours to reach the bottom.

15.04 – We are very close to the bottom but exhaustion has taken over Joe completely. He is vomiting at the side of the path every 20 metres and is finding it impossible to stop. This has left him taking tiny, slow steps down the mountain and we’re getting hardly anywhere.

15.47 – This is it! We’re 20 metres for the Pen-y-Pass car park and the finish. We want to finish this as a team so we wait for us all to be together before continuing. The final stretch is just a flat path, what could go wrong? Joe pays one more visit to the side of the path! We all hug one another and cross the line together.  The watch is stopped to show a time of 22 hours, 47 minutes and 4 seconds! For the first time, we think about what we have achieved; the three highest mountains in Britain in under 23 hours! We take a few photos before a long team hug at the end; we have come through so much together today!

So that’s it, that’s how we, a team of three students, completed the Three Peaks Challenge. When we in the car home, we discussed what we feel we could have done better, and we truly think we did our best! Although you can train month on end, as we did, to acquire the physical fitness and endurance to take on a task, we agreed that there is no way to train yourself for: the sleep derivation, long hours of confinement, navigation in zero light and thick fog, navigation when exhausted, driving wind, heavy rain and of course a broken down minibus!

But even when we thought we could go no further, we were always there for each other as a team, which proved vital. Despite the pain and fatigue, we all enjoyed the challenge, and we all feel so privileged and proud to be able to support a charity which is so worthy!

Three Students Three Peaks

Most of us appreciate the challenges faced by young people in their everyday lives. As students ourselves we really understand that life can be tough for people growing up, although we find it hard to imagine how much more difficult life can be for a child growing up with severe physical and medical disabilities.

Chailey Heritage is an extraordinary place where children, aged 3-19, receive clinical care, education, therapy, mentoring, and all the other services and skills that many able bodied and minded people take for granted. Highly dedicated and specialised staff work extremely hard to provide an environment for these students where they can feel safe and valued, and it is clear that they really do enjoy their time at school; this is helping them to become more independent, ambitious, and most importantly, happy!

We have been very privileged to meet many of the students of the school, and the time we have spent with them has provided so much motivation for us to complete our challenge. We really admire the bravery of these students,

The families too of students with these levels of complex difficulty, who always carry a smile in spite of their circumstances, are also supported by the superb work of the Chailey Heritage team.  All parents have aspirations and dreams for their child.  All parents worry about their children and hope that they will do well at school and achieve in life.  These families are no different.  Imagine if your child struggles to communicate, struggles to coordinate their movement, struggles to carry out the normal every day tasks such as washing or getting dressed.  Finding a place where clinical expertise, understanding and help is assured such as Chailey Heritage is a lifeline for so many families.

For more information on Chailey Heritage, please click here


So what are we doing to help?

We are three students who wish we could dedicate more time to voluntary work on a regular basis, but it can be very difficult to find the time. This is why we are spending the majority of our summer holidays organising and attempting this event to help raise money for a charity which helps families and children with complex difficulties overcome the many challenges that they face on a daily basis.

The Three Peaks Challenge is considered one of the toughest the UK has to offer. It involves climbing Britain's three highest mountains - Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon - in 24 hours. This includes 480 miles of driving and climbing approximately 3000 vertical metres.

Climb: Ben Nevis (5hours)
Drive: Ben Nevis to Scafell Pike (6hours)
Climb: Scafell Pike (5hours)
Drive: Scafell Pike to Snowdon (4hours)
Climb: Snowdon (4 hours, or whatever time we have left!)

We are training hard as this challenge will demand all our powers of endurance and stamina.  However, in addition to the challenge itself, we are working extremely hard to fund-raise in order to reach our ambitious target.

All funds we raise will contribute to the re-development of the secondary department of the school, for children aged 11-16. Every contribution, however small, will make a positive change for good.

 

How can you help?

Many people assume that schools such as Chailey Heritage are funded by the Government but this is not the case. The school relies solely on donations to carry out its fantastic work; without the support of local people and businesses it would be impossible to provide the vital equipment and staff required to support the young people.

Within the community, it is vitally important that we make sure that people, less fortunate than ourselves, receive the best quality of life available. This is why we hope you will help us to support these truly wonderful children - of Chailey Heritage - to make sure that they know that their local community is here to support them.

It is important to stress that every penny of any sponsorship will go directly to Chailey Heritage since we will be funding all expenses (vehicle and hiking equipment etc) ourselves. On top of this, if tax-payers select Gift Aid, an additional 28p will be received by the school from the Inland Revenue for every pound donated.

So please dig deep and donate whatever you can. All donations will be received extremely gratefully.


Final Note

One of Chailey Heritage’s most important messages is that “Every Child Matters” and we hope that by completing this event and gaining your support, we can confirm that this is a message that the public agrees with!

Thank you so much for you time and support. Together we can assure this school gets the support it deserves. Please return to our page in the near future as we will be updating it regularly to keep you informed of how we’re getting on.

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06/06/09 – Today we created our Just Giving site. We really hope that this can be the ‘back bone’ of our fund-raising campaign to help us reach our target.

08/06/09 – Keep your eyes peeled for us training in our ‘3 Students 3 Peaks’ t-shirts, which arrived today.

11/06/09 - We went to visit the school today. We met the Head of Fund-Raising who gave us a tour of the school. We were lucky to be able to take photographs with the students to add to this page and our flyers etc. The students and staff were all fantastic, and we're all eager to find out what we are doing to raise the money. They were shocked to hear that 3 students had targetted themselves such a large ammount to raise, and it was clear that this money is really going to help them. 

20/06/09 - Spent today in the Lake District training. We made it to the top of Scafell Pike, but is becoming apparent just how difficult this challenge is going to be! We are now more than 10% towards our target which really helped motivate us yesterday... The support everyone has given us so far will really help us to continue training hard and preparing for the challenge. Thank you so much to everyone who has donated so far!

04/07/09 - Joe and Stuart (Joe's Dad and one of the team's drivers) travelled to Edinburgh this weekend to celebrate our Granny's 80th Birthday! For every other member of our family, a great opportunity to celebrate. For us, as well as seeing all the family, a great chance to do some training on Ben Nevis. And, what can we say? We have never seen snow in July before!! Another good climb overall.

15/07/09 - From today untill 31 August, Joe will be donating any tip he receives at Pizza Express to help us along to our target.

16/07/09 - This evening, we organised refreshments at the interval of a piano concert in Haywards Heath. We didn't set a price for any of the items; customer's were asked to pay what they felt the refreshments were worth. We raised a total of £134... Thanks so much to everyone at the concert tonight, you've helped us to break through the £2000 mark! 

17/07/09 - Today, we had a stall at the Cuckfield Crafts Fair. We handed out leaflets and held a collection. We raised just under £90. Thanks to everyone who donated.

03/08/09 -  Sorry we haven't written to our page in so long; we have been so busy organising various fund-raisers and the challenge. We broke £3,000 yesterday which we are all so happy about. Chailey Heritage have been emailing us regularly to see how we're getting on. We will write soon to let you know how we get on at each collection we have planned.

08/08/09 -  Today, from 10am til 3pm, we held a collection in the Orchards Shopping Centre. Many people came to talk to us about our challenge and hundreds of people made contributions. The fantastic support of all the shoppers helped us to raise £442.50 today! This has pushed our total just over £4,000!

10/08/09 - We all travelled to Wales today to train on Snowdon. The walk went well and we have now climbed all of the peaks between us. Now all we have to do is combine them all into one day!! Many thanks to Andy for driving today.

11/08/09 - We are going for a radio interview later on today. Mid Sussexs Downs Radio are interviewing us from 2pm this afternoon.

15/08/09 - Today we held a collection outside the Co-op in Haywards Heath. We raised just under £170 which we were very pleased with considering to gloomy weather.

15/08/09 - We have received some bad news. Today, Stuart was informed that he will have to work on Monday 24th August. Unfortunately this means he will be unable to be part of our support team as planned. We were left in a bit of a panic but luckily a friend of Andy has stepped in to help us, thank you Tony! Sorry you can't make it Stuart, and thanks for all your help so far, from all the team!

16/08/09 - We are now over 50% of the way to our target!! We don't think there would be any better news to boost morale of the team!

16/08/09 - Another collection today, this time at Olympus Gym. As well as collecting £139, one person made the effort to donate on our site... thanks so much to everyone! 

22/08/09 -  We packed up the people carrier early in the morning and set off to Glasgow where we stayed to get our last good nights rest before the challenge.

23/08/09 - The challenge starts at 5PM today... We are all very nervous and are spending this morning focusing on the task ahead. We will write here soon to let you know how we got on.

24/08/09 -  We just completed the challenge in 22 hours 47 minutes and 4 seconds! We are all absolutely exhausted!! We will write a full report on the challenge within the next week. 

01/09/09 - Today, pictures of the challenge have been added to the site. Just click the "photo" link under the main picture.  

04/09/09 - We have now added a full report of the challenge above. 

05/09/09 - Today we held our final collection at Sainsbury's in Haywards Heath. The local people were very impressed to hear about the challenge and as a result we managed to raise £357.30! This is our final collection bringing our total raised from collections alone to £1341.80!! Thank you so much to eveyone who stopped in the streets to support us.