Dear all,

Saturday 21st June was the Cobham Graduates Three Peaks Challenge Attempt. We are all back in one piece, after having a couple of adventures.

On Saturday afternoon, in perfect weather, we were the 8th team to set off up Ben Nevis. This was quite uneventful, and just over 5 hours and a bit of a sprint later, we reached the finish checkpoint. Our drive to Scafell Pike in the Lake District was fairly uneventful, with a fifteen minute stop on the way to re-pack our bags for the next climb. Thanks to some good driving by our drivers, we were the second team to arrive at the base of Scafell Pike.

This was where things started to go a bit wrong. Upon arrival, we were informed that the recent rain and gale force winds had rendered one of the rivers on our route uncrossable. At the time we arrived, Mountain Rescue had received five call-outs for Scafell Pike. As a result, Mountain Rescue and the organisers of our challenge decided to move the summit checkpoint to roughly a third of the way up the mountain, on our side of the river. We completed this section of the climb, and descended in a huge downpour.

As we were well ahead of time, we stopped for breakfast on the way to Wales. As we approached Snowdonia, we received a phonecall, asking us to report to the finish point instead of the start of the walk. There we were told that the winds we could feel were actually 80mph on the summit ridge, gusting to 90mph. This was too much to walk in, and we were reliably informed that sheep were being blown away! As a result, the summit checkpoint was moved to halfway up the Llanberis path, just near the Halfway Station of the Mountain Railway. We were well within the 24hours now, so after a hot drink in the café at the summit checkpoint, we returned to the finish in a time of 21hrs 37min.

Despite our disappointment at not being able to reach the top of two of the peaks, we were still glad not to have been one of the teams who dropped out along the way. The weekend was enjoyed by everybody, and apart from a couple of blisters and sore legs, the whole team suffered no ill effects. We would like to say a big thank you to everybody who supported us and the Youth Cancer Trust in this venture.