Dear All,

After many years of leisurely strolls up and down mountains followed by curries and beers, I have finally committed to doing something truly challenging.  I was convinced by one of my lifelong friends that climbing the highest mountain in Wales, the highest mountain in England and the highest mountain in Scotland for charity would be a good idea - The 3 peaks challenge.   Now I didn’t think that it sounded that difficult until he told me that we needed to complete all three in under 24hours.  To boost my confidence further he then told me to think of doing the London Marathon three times, in 24hrs.   Too late to back out now, as we are doing this in aid of Muscular Dystrophy Research and the WAY Project. WAY is a local charity in Wollaston the village where I grew up that provides a building for the Pre School, Sunrise and Sunset club and my old Scout group.

Due to the way that the Just Giving site works, I am unable to set up a page for multiple charities, and have therefore chosen the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign project as my personal Charity, however the group total will be split between the two charities as a number of other fund raising events are underway.

About Muscular Dystrophy: Muscular dystrophy and related muscle diseases cause muscles to waste and weaken. More than 70,000 babies, children and adults in the UK are affected.

http://www.muscular-dystrophy.org/

Please give what you can, no matter how small, as every pound helps. 

 

Thank you.

 

Rich

 

We did it but it went to the wire, read on for the story...

Friday 6^th may

11:00 – Call from one of our drivers to say that he is unwell.

14:00 – Replacement driver found who is also a mechanic.

15:15 – Loaded the ancient minibus feeling glad that Paul’s a mechanic.

15:20 – Realised minibus wasn’t big enough for all of us plus equipment!  

15:30 – Steve collected his people carrier, so that we didn’t need to have luggage in our laps!  This is one pimped people carrier, pea green VW with blacked out windows and Mercedes AMG Alloy wheels!!!

15:45 – Departed for Snowdonia, 45 mins behind schedule, luckily the 24h challenge only started at base of Snowdon.

18:23 – Pimp mobile struggling to keep up due to gearbox issues, takes a detour to collect gearbox oil.

20:05 –Penn-y-Pass car park, foot of Snowdon. Pimp mobile smells of burning.  Steve hands Paul the gearbox oil in the hope that he will be able to fix it, in the dark, whilst we climbed our first peak.

20:10 – Began Ascent of Snowdon, 50 mins to Sunset, plus another 30 mins or so of dusk before dark.

21:40 – We reached the ridge at the top of the Pyg track with head torches to light our way and were greeted by the lights of the towns and villages of Snowdonia 2,500ft below.  It was wonderfully peaceful as we were the only people on the mountain.    We began our final trek to the summit which was in the clouds and were greeted by some fierce winds and horizontal rain.  

21:55 – Snowdon Summit – Posed for a quick photo and began descent.

23:45 – One down, two to go.   Back in the car park, Paul had topped up the gearbox oil in the Pimp Mobile and called in the cavalry. Terry who is also a mechanic, is already motoring to meet us in a service station en route to the Lakes in his Galaxy.

23:49 – En route to the Lake District.

01:05 – Puncture!   Everyone gets off the bus hoping that someone checked the spare before we left!  Luckily Paul is a skilled tyre fitter, unfortunately in the dark on the hard shoulder, he can’t find the jacking point!    After much swearing and getting soaked by the spray from passing juggernauts, Paul manages to complete the emergency pit stop in only 35 mins.

01:40 – we are on the move again, discussing our contingency plans.  One suggestion was to adopt the modern rules of 3 peaks, which says that driving time is 10h, climbing time is 14h, thereby allowing adjustments for traffic.    I am strongly opposed to this, as we have fund raised based on the 24h challenge.  In addition, a lot of my friends have goaded me by saying things like <24h = Winner, >24h = Loser! (thanks David, this helped to bring my competitive spirit out!)

02:00 – Rendezvous with the Pimp Mobile and Terry in Lymm Truck Stop.   We now have 3 vehicles in our convoy, 2 more than we had, 11 hours ago!

05:15 – After a couple of hours sleep, the sun was already up and we were at the foot of Scaffell Pike beginning our second ascent.  The team were mostly in good spirits, however some of the younger lads need a bit of encouragement, as they weren’t feeling great.   I also gave them a bit of a lesson in nutrition – i.e. why it wasn’t a good idea to eat a few packs of crisps, a whole packet of Haribo and wash it down with 4 bottles of fizzy Lucozade prior to climbing a mountain!

07:15 – Summit of Scaffell Pike, slightly slower than we had hoped for, but none the less still a good time.   We posed for another photo, let out a cheer and started the descent.

08:35 – Two down one to go.  Back on the bus and off to the Highlands.

15:10 – Thanks to our impromptu pit stop to admire Paul’s tyre changing skills, and some horrific traffic en route to the highlands, we arrived at the Campsite at the foot of Ben Nevis much later than planned.

15:15 – Already fatigued from the first two peaks and the lack of sleep, we began our ascent of the highest mountain in the UK.  Last time I climbed this one it took 5 hours to reach the summit, we needed to be up and down in 4h55m!     Fuelled by Caroline’s breakfast bars, peanut butter sandwiches and Bananas, not to mention my competitive spirit and the fear of being an >24h Loser, I started to discuss the strategy with our team leader, Jonathan.    My watch has an altimeter on it, so we set the pace at 50m of altitude every 6 minutes to get us to the top in just under 3 hours, which would give us 2 hours to get down.   By the time we reached 1000m we were still on the pace.  However the cloud had descended and it began to rain, I managed to get my waterproof jacket on, but not the trousers before I was soaked through!   Too late to worry about these things, our movement would keep us warm.  

18:05 – After a lot of shouting (nice encouraging things of course;) we managed to drive the whole team to the summit for our third and final team photo.   We now had 2h5m to get down which involved mainly fast walking, no stopping, a bit of running, some tripping, a bit of slipping and a lot of chafing (thanks to the wet trousers) and swearing!

20:03 – 3 Peaks done in under 24h = Winner!      With 7 minutes to spare we were back at the campsite looking forward to a well-earned pint!

 

We completed the whole challenge in 23h53m.  Total, mountain time 11h45m.

...But even more amazing than our walking achievement is that the Pimp Mobile made it in one piece!

 

Once again, thanks for all of your support, it was great to see the messages of encouragement, donations and banter coming in as we were on the hills.

 

Best wishes,

 

Rich

 

 

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