Hi Folks,

Well the good news is that we successfully completed the Yorkshire 3 Peaks albeit we didn't quite make it within the 12 hours. We clocked in at 12 hours 45 mins which was primarily down to the atrocious weather with wind, rain and mist throughout the day. It really was the most physically gruelling ordeal any of us had been through. A number of other "3 Peak" challengers who we encountered en route either had already given up or were intending to because of the weather so we were pleased simply to have finished.

A big thanks in particular to Neil and Kevin for keeping us on the right track with their map reading and compass skills. Just picking out some of the main highlights (not many) and lowlights (numerous) of the day :-

Not even having the reward of seeing the views from the top of any of the 3 Peaks as they were all shrouded in mist !

Neil replying "almost there" to every query about how much further we had to go to the next milestone !

Jon developing Tourette's at an early part of the walk which degenerated into a chronic condition by the end ("lets just get off this ******* mountain !")

Graham H doing frequent impersonations of "Bambi on Ice" on some of the more treacherous stretches !

Kevin choosing the wrong patch of bog to step on and his entire leg disappearing into the mud !

One of Jon's boots playing up resulting in him doing most of the hike with one boot and one white trainer (and getting some very strange looks from other hikers !)

Yours truly trying to clamber over a drystone wall in the dark and bringing down half of it in the process - immediately followed by a gashed finger when attempting to rebuild it !

The sheer blessed relief of finally arriving back to our base and the thought of a hot shower.

We haven't quite worked the exact figures yet but expect to have raised somewhere around £4000 comprising Justgiving donations, other pledges, and of course Zurich matching. So many thanks folks for all your generous donations and support - it really was the thought of helping so many worthwhile charities which pushed us on to the end (oh and of course the cold beer!).

Best Wishes

Graham and the team.