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A group of personnel from Ascent Flight Training will be completing the three peak challenge raising money for BEAR FORCE. This challenge involves walking the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales within 24 hours and is not one for the faint hearted.

BEAR FORCE was established to encourage children of all ages to talk about their worries; to create safe spaces and environments where they can talk and be heard; to provide easily accessible platforms with advice in a format that children can understand, and to raise awareness of the need for adults to listen. The inception of BEAR FORCE came about as a result of the bereavement by suicide of the founder Richard Bland’s son. Richard approached the Dove Service, a bereavement charity, to offer his support in fundraising with a particular focus on using his aviation hobby, which included a toy bear (affectionately named Wing Commander Bear) who was travelling the world with its own Royal Air Force Pilot’s log book (of note: Wing Commander Bear has now flown over 2000 flying hours in 82 different military and civilian aircraft types). The then CEO of Dove Service helped Richard to turn the story of the toy bear into a book ”AB gets his Wings” with the toy bear being renamed after Richard’s son, Andrew Bland. With the introduction of other Trustees, it was agreed to redesign the book and to include additional narrative so that it could be used as part of “distraction therapy” in helping younger children identify and talk about their worries and concerns. The book was renamed 'BEAR FORCE', and the Charity was subsequently formed.

The book can be purchased from here: https://bearforce.org.uk/product/bear-force-book/

The challenge starts in Scotland at Ben Nevis, which at, 1,344m/4,409ft is the tallest of the three. From there the expedition will drive south into the Lake District where they climb Scafell Pike (978m/3,209ft). The final of the three is the Welsh mountain, Snowdon, standing at no less than 1,085m/3,560ft.