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The Three Peaks challenge...
Just to give you an idea of the preparation before our climb many members of the team were going to the gym three or four times a week, some were climbing scafell in preparation whilst two of the members of the team had been to both V festival and Leeds Festival both weekends previously.
Ben Nevis was the biggest also our first so we all had bundles of energy. We set off early Saturday morning and climbed this one which took over 6 hours, many of which were spent adding, taking off, and then adding layers to ourselves depending on how hot/cold we got. Feeling suitably chuffed that we’d trekked to the top in 3 hours and loaded up with all manner of high tech wind/rain resistant gear we were then told to get a move on as 100’s of fell runners dressed in shorts and t shirts sprinted past us on the way to the top and back down, just to make it clear to us that we were far far away from our air conditioned offices and mouse mats.
The second climb wasScafell Pike at 10pm that night this proved to be a bit more difficult. We found ourselves at the summit at 2 am on the Sunday morning. Whilst many people were no doubt tucked up in bed or out clubbing we were surrounded in pitch black, with only head torches to guide us, @ 1000 feet in minus degree temperatures whilst horizontal rain lashed over us constantly. UnlikeBen Nevis there weren’t any places for us to shelter either, so we crouched behind a small pile of rocks and chomped down on hikers banquet, which consists of two sodden snickers and a triangle ham and cheese sandwich made three days previously.
The last climb wasSnowdon, which we made on Sunday morning, where at 10am we changed out of our warm dry clothes and into our muddy wet ones for the long climb. Fantastic we thought, as most of us had climbedSnowdon at the age of eight and were looking forward to a gentle meander up the path followed by a train ride to the top and a nice cup of Bovril at the café. It seems our guide had other ideas, as he led us up the Pyg path which I’ve been reliably informed was named because it was an absolute pig to climb and then proceeded to tell us that the café was closed for refurbishment and the train was in for a service. That made the remainder of the journey to the top quite a slog, especially as the rest of the team were either now refusing to talk to me or telling me where I could shove each of the 3 peaks.
We made it back intact however and all in all it was a great experience, and even if being utterly drenched, fatigued and freezing doesn’t float your boat you do get a great feeling of achievement and some free grub along the way.
Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, it really did cause us as much pain as we all thought it would and hopefully will go to do more good and create a lot of happiness for the people who International Alert help.
The 3 peak massive.