We did it - well, 7 of us completed climbing all 3 mountains - see partial report below, with more to follow soon!

Congratulations to Duncan, Dave, Bob T, Paul, Phillip, Barry & Bob J for completing the challenge, with Duncan being the man of the mountain for achieving this within 24 hours!

We are a team of 7 ageing, unfit Rotarians, who got together with a group of 5 friends to undertake what for us was probably our biggest ever physical and mental challenge - to climb the highest peaks of Scotland (Ben Nevis - 4,409 ft), England (Scafell Pike - 3,209 ft) and Wales (Snowdon - 3,560 ft) over a 24 hour period during the first weekend in June 2010!  This involved walking 26 miles whilst climbing (& then descending) 10,000 ft, with 9 hours of driving between the peaks. Why on earth would we have done such a crazy thing, when we should be putting our feet up at our time in life? Well, blame Mark Robinson - we do!

About a year ago, our incoming Club President Mark laid down a challenge for the club to raise a considerable sum for the charity Beating Bowel Cancer, a leading UK charity for bowel cancer patients, working to raise awareness of symptoms, promote early diagnosis and encourage open access to treatment choice - their main message is that if it is diagnosed early enough, it is very treatable.  Mark's mother had died of the condition in February 2009, aged 75, and had been aware of her symptoms at least 9 months before she did anything about it.  If she had seen her doctor when she first noticed something was wrong, she might have beaten the disease or at least had a longer life. 

One of Mark's clients is battling the disease, as is his walking friend, Jim Taylor (60), who completed his second round of chemo a month before the challenge.  Jim - a District Judge in Cambridge - with his work colleague Pete Stevens walked with us and whilst Jim had climbed all three mountains before, he has never done them all in a day - so we blame him too!  Unfortunately Pete had to step down after climbing Ben Nevis due to illness, so his place was taken by Mark Robinson.  Between them, Jim, Pete and Mark completed about two thirds of the challenge, walking some 16 miles and climbing almost 7,000 ft - a fantastic achievement, Jim, very well done!

We were joined by Dave Courteen, MD of the Fitness Express chain of fitness centres, who assured us that he had been too busy running his business to get fit - we didn't believe him and our views were confirmed (with him never having climbed a mountain in his life before) when he completed the challenge and got to the top of the last mountain with 24 hours of starting!  Dave brought along his friend, Jon Herman, who is a GP.  Unfortunately Jon over-did his training by climbing 3 Welsh mountains in 29 hours the previous weekend and had to retire with a knee injury after completing Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike. 

Finally, we have been working with John Lewis Partnership on another project in Cambridge and their national charity of the year happens to be Beating Bowel Cancer. They put in a team of 6 with 1 driver and blasted their way round the mountains to show us how it should be done - we would like to think their success was down to their youth and enthusiasm, but their eldest team member was almost as old as ours, being 62 to our 66!

We had a team of 9 drivers to ferry us around in 5 vehicles and they performed brilliantly by driving a total of 1,300 miles with very little sleep during the challenge itself and keeping their charges fed and watered.

Whilst most of our sponsorship has been raised for Beating Bowel Cancer we have also been raising money for Polio Plus, one of Rotary's long term challenges to eradicate polio throughout the world, with only 4 countries remaining endemic.  To help finish this project, which has been running since 1985, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has offered Rotary International a total of $355M, provided that Rotary raise $200M, so 1.2M Rotarians around the world are busy fundraising to take full advantage of this significant act of generosity. See www.ribi.org/thanks-for-life for more information.  £1,500 of our total sponsorship will be given to this cause, out of our off-line donations.

We haven't closed the book on this project, so please support our causes as best as you can and it is not too late to sponsor us.  Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - we raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.