Take it away hubby!
I'll try to keep this concise as I'm prone to spewing a load of drivel in the written form (as readers of our travel diary will probably recall) even more than I am verbally.
The 3 Peaks Challenge, for those of you who don't know, is an event where the objective is to climb up the highest mountains in each of the 3 countries that constitute Great Britain - Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Mount Snowdon in Wales. To successfully complete the challenge, you must arrive at the peak of Snowdon less than 24 hours after beginning your ascent of Ben Nevis so, the 11 hours of driving mean that you have 13 hours to climb up and down Ben Nevis, up and down Scafell Pike and then climb up Snowdon. After a celebratory manhug, you can then amble down at whatever speed your body permits and nurse your wounds.
Quite why I thought it would be a good idea to take on the challenge is anyone's guess but when I put the idea around a few mates, the uptake and enthusiasm was such that I was committed before I realised what I was letting myself in for.
The fitness was unlikely to be an issue for me as I've been doing a bit of jogging in recent months but the combination of a lack of sleep, 26 miles of stomping about in heavy hiking boots (which I'd not broken in) and a total elevation gain of about 2 miles meant that this was always going to be a struggle for me.
So, we prepared kit lists, maps, hydration drinks, accommodation, a minibus, a driver and a whole host of other minor details and hit the road from the South coast at 4:30pm on Thursday.
The original plan had been to travel up to Fort William (the foot of Ben Nevis) and sleep under the stars but the weather forecast caused a last-minute re-jig of the plan and we ended up deciding to be down in a cheapo Premier Inn en-route instead. It proved to be the wisest decision of the entire trip as we'd not have reached Fort William until 5 or 6am if we'd kept going, by which time it would've been light and nobody would have had a wink of sleep before we even got started on the first mountain.
Refreshed and buzzing with anticipation, we jumped aboard our slow, noisy chariot at 9:30am on the Friday and made our way North.
I'll try to keep this concise as I'm prone to spewing a load of drivel in the written form (as readers of our travel diary will probably recall) even more than I am verbally.
The 3 Peaks Challenge, for those of you who don't know, is an event where the objective is to climb up the highest mountains in each of the 3 countries that constitute Great Britain - Ben Nevis in Scotland, Scafell Pike in England and Mount Snowdon in Wales. To successfully complete the challenge, you must arrive at the peak of Snowdon less than 24 hours after beginning your ascent of Ben Nevis so, the 11 hours of driving mean that you have 13 hours to climb up and down Ben Nevis, up and down Scafell Pike and then climb up Snowdon. After a celebratory manhug, you can then amble down at whatever speed your body permits and nurse your wounds.
Quite why I thought it would be a good idea to take on the challenge is anyone's guess but when I put the idea around a few mates, the uptake and enthusiasm was such that I was committed before I realised what I was letting myself in for.
The fitness was unlikely to be an issue for me as I've been doing a bit of jogging in recent months but the combination of a lack of sleep, 26 miles of stomping about in heavy hiking boots (which I'd not broken in) and a total elevation gain of about 2 miles meant that this was always going to be a struggle for me.
So, we prepared kit lists, maps, hydration drinks, accommodation, a minibus, a driver and a whole host of other minor details and hit the road from the South coast at 4:30pm on Thursday.
The original plan had been to travel up to Fort William (the foot of Ben Nevis) and sleep under the stars but the weather forecast caused a last-minute re-jig of the plan and we ended up deciding to be down in a cheapo Premier Inn en-route instead. It proved to be the wisest decision of the entire trip as we'd not have reached Fort William until 5 or 6am if we'd kept going, by which time it would've been light and nobody would have had a wink of sleep before we even got started on the first mountain.
Refreshed and buzzing with anticipation, we jumped aboard our slow, noisy chariot at 9:30am on the Friday and made our way North.
I indulged myself a little on the road North as I knew we'd be passing a spot that has some special memories for me (it's where I proposed to Mush) so I suggested it as our sandwich stop. As it turned out, a cheese sandwich was nigh-on £4 so only a few of us bothered - the remainder choosing to wait until we reached Fort William to load up on carbohydrates
Once we reached the Highlands, the scale of what we were in for became more and more apparent. As the hills started to become mountains, and the mountains started becoming bigger, the overriding thought was that not a single one of any of the hills I was looking at was as big as what we had to climb. And we were looking at some pretty big hills.
It's hard to get a sense of scale in a picture like this but, besides being rather symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing, the hill below is flipping tall. Ben Nevis would beg to differ, however. Ben would batter it, deep fry it and gobble it up for breakfast.
On arrival in Fort William, a few of the party did some last minute shopping while the rest of us mixed up drinks and plotted the finer details of our assault. You can't really see it in the pictures below but Ben Nevis is in the background of these pictures. That you can see it over the top of the hills in front of you from this vantage point, despite it being a few miles away, is testament to how pokey-uppy (TM) it really is.
Having driven the last few miles to our set-off point, we loaded ourselves up with clobber and started walking at a brisk pace, but not before the mandatory group photo. I'm the one who looks very comfortable with his sexuality on the right-hand side of the pitcure.
We'd only been going a matter of minutes before the weather turned and we were donning waterproofs that moments previously some of us were considering trying to climb without.
The cloud soon engulfed us and turned a comfortable glow into a gale-force, rain and sleet storm that wouldn't relent until we were safely tucked up in the minibus again several hours later.
Getting to the top of Ben Nevis was, at times, a tortuous slog. As I pointed out to several people once we were low enough below the storm to be able to share a thought, it was the only time I've ever had a proper headache caused by the coldness of the wind that was battering it.
This was to become my standard mountaintop pose for the event. Granted, I could be standing on any old pile of rubble with a smoke machine behind me but I somehow felt that doing the same pose each time proved that I'd reached each summit.
On our descent, the cloud momentarily cleared when we were about halfway down. The hastily taken snaps below give a flavour of the view.
On reaching the base, I was a helpless buffoon and it was all I could do to stumble into the minibus and ask people to pass me stuff as they passed nearby. Most selfish, I grant you, but it was either that or go without as there was no prospect of my getting back onto solid ground so I just decided to be cheeky anyway.
Having successfully navigated Ben Nevis, the next stage was to travel through the night to Scafell Pike in the Lake District. Despite my fairly pronounced motion sickness, I was actually able to get a few hours kip once we'd cleared the winding roads of the Scottish Highlands and moved onto the motorway.
Our driver, Paul, was the only man awake for several hours until we reached a roadblock.
The sign said "Road Closed". A sign next to it read "Diversion Ends". At a loss for what to do as he was following a SatNav, Paul woke me and I guided us in using a map. We ended up crossing a few private farms and doing a bit of sheep dodging but we ended up reaching our destination at 5 am. We got going fairly promptly and, as with Ben Nevis, the crafty aspect of Scafell Pike is that a combination of smaller foothills, tricks of perspective and cloud cover prevent you appreciating what you are in for.
We were soon in our stride again, splitting up into smaller groups as our respectives abilities dictated. The most fun bit of Scafell is traversing a stream/river about a 10th of the way up. The water moves fairly rapidly and there's no decent footing so there's a real possibility of ending up in the icy-cold drink and getting washed downstream so it makes for a great spectator spot.
After that, it was another long slog up loose rocks, scree and some fairly rugged terrain. None of it is inherently hard but the whole thing combined is just a grind, especially after little sleep and an ascent of Ben Nevis.
I did, however, reach the summit, and here's my standard pose.
After reaching the foot of Scafell, my body just gave up. Again, I flopped into the minibus and this time I found my entire body involuntarily shivering and trembling for about half an hour. Again, I was at the mercy of the rest of the group but, ever the trooper, Ken passed me some pasta that he'd kindly prepared the week before while Paul hung out my stuff to dry (while we waited for the last of the group to reach us).
Mount Snowdon was next, and last, on the agenda but I declared, en-route, that I was bailing out at this point. My body had told me loud and clear that it was exhausted. I had very painful blisters and, to top it off, my knees were now giving me plenty of aggro. On reaching the services near Chester, I dragged myself veeeery slowly into the services for a Cornish pasty, a pack of crisps, a Snickers and a can of coke. I figured that if I was throwing in the towel, I may as well stop trying to eat proper energy food and indulge myself with some junk.
Shortly after gorging myself, I phoned Mush to give her an update. She did her best to encourage me but I inisted that my challenge was over. She then played her trump card, "Ellis wants to speak to you."
"Hello Ellis. How are you?"
"Hello Daddy. Come on, you can do it."
Nooooooooooooo. What was I to do now? So I resolved to step out of the minibus when we reached Snowdon and see how it went.
Here's the pre-Snowdon group pic.
This time I had a knee support (kindly lent to me by someone else in the team who was faring much better that I). I also put some compeed blister plasters all over my feet.
Within minutes, the compeeds proved about as useful as a chocolate teapot - riding up and actually exacerbating the pain by rubbing directly on top of the blisters.
Fortunately for me, another of the fellas in the group had some old-skool tape in his pack. He unravelled a bit and stuck it on my feet. It was a borderline revelation; I certainly wasn't comfortable but I was able to press forwards.
Before I knew it, I was at the point where the summit felt like a realistic target and it suddenly became apparent that the game was back on!
Slowly but surely, the peak started getting that little bit bigger and the lake below started becoming that little bit smaller.
Snowdon is something of a funny shape as it has a long gentle slope, followed by a steepish scramble, followed by a shorter gentle slope. As I crested onto the top gentle slope, a mass of cloud appeared from nowhere and the pleasant conditions suddenly became bleak, cold and very unwelcoming. Resultantly, we took a few quick snaps to record the moment before stopping our watches and beginning our descent. My official time was 22 hours 38 minutes - Wooohooo!
Turning around, it was immediately apparent that the final descent was going to be very, very slow and unsteady. My knees, and particularly Pete's knees (we walked together on Snowdon) were hammered and forced a pathetically slow hobble down.
We ended up back at the B&B at about 11 pm and all I was able to do was soak my weary limbs in a hot bath before my final ascent of the day - Pete had bagged the bottom bunk!
I managed to bash my head on a TV bracket and then on the ceiling of the room on my gracious climb up to the top bunk - probably not my most glamorous moment ever - but I was out cold within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. Job done. Never again.
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