The National Three Peaks Challege

Three mountains in 24 hours- Are we crazy?! - July 2015

Ben Nevis with the weather conditions fighting against us

I had never heard of the Three Peaks Challenge myself before it was mentioned in one of the Project Trust fundraising meetings, so for those who don't know it's a rather difficult challenge...

In brief, what the Three Peaks consists of is climbing the highest 3 mountains in England, Scotland and Wales in under 24 hours. Not only do you climb these three mountains (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) in such a short amount of time but you also have to include travel time into it- which means no lay-ins between mountain walks, no nice warm showers and certainly no tea breaks or picture taking (although luckily we had the guides to take pictures for us). What that time also meant was that we had to walk some of the mountains in the dark, and at times, pitch black (which was interesting!) 

The first mountain we climbed was Ben Nevis- The highest and apparently the hardest out of the three. At the beginning it seemed quite easy, the sun was out and there was not a cloud in sight, also the track was fairly flat to begin with- but we knew it was going to get a lot steeper from the sights ahead of us... It was all going okay until we got about three quarters of the way up and the wind started to pick up, shortly followed by the rain. There was no room for sightseeing and gazing at the views at this point as one wrong move we would have been blown over. As we approached the summit of the mountain many of those who brought poles were more than happy that they'd brought them. Not only did they help us stick to the path due to the strong winds but the also helped us conquer the snow at the top of the mountain which was a big surprise for us all!- At the bottom of the mountain we had been in shorts and T-shirts and to think that there was snow at the top in July was more than a bit if a shock!

Daybreak at Scafell 

 After getting down the mountain and travelling to the Lake District we were were approximately an hour behind time due to the weather conditions. Next up was Scafell Pike which many had argued was more difficult than Ben Nevis. The trouble was Scafell was that it was very rocky and there were loose stones everywhere. It was extremely exhausting because you were physically tired out from stepping on all the high rocks and mentally warn out too from having to concentrate all the time on footwork and placing the poles. The dark didn't make it much easier- but luckily we all had head-torches, knowing that as long as they didn't run out of battery they would all be fine!

My parents and cousin on the last Summit at Snowdon 

 The last and final mountain we climbed was Snowdon in Wales. This, for both me and my cousin, was the first time we had visited Wales so the views were all very new to us. When we got to Snowdon we were separated into a few different groups, groups of those who wanted to stick together with friends/family and those who wanted to go different speeds. I went in a group with my uncle in order to try and make up some of the time we lost on Ben Nevis. It was very hard work! On the last climb my legs were extremely stiff and sleep deprivation meant that you had to put in extra effort when stepping up higher rocks. However once we got into the climb it did seem easier to establish a better pace. In the end we managed to save some time on the walk- taking only 3 hours hours 50 mins instead of the estimated 4 and a half hours. However even with this time we weren't quite at 24 hours (only 45 mins over!) however speaking to the guides this was unavoidable because of the weather at Ben Nevis. - some of the later groups had to turn back due to the winds so we were quite lucky that didn't happen to us!  Unfortunately one of the people in our group couldn't make it to the top due to knee problems- however her friends wrote her name on a Rock named "Michelle" and brought that to the mountain (as you can see in the photo) - Such a lovely idea! All in all it was a very hard, yet enjoyable experience- and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is prepared to train really hard and see some amazing sights! :)