Three Peaks Challenge

The Third of Parts - The Ritual Begins

What a sleep. I’m feeling quite relaxed, but not ready for the shower controls, not the time for experimentation. WIDE AWAKE NOW!!!!!!!! Jeeeez that water’s cold.

The 3P ritual starts – pick up the minibus – take the seats out – discover the cigarette lighter doesn’t work – rig it up – blow fuse in base station radio – swear – load up more hand radios – load bus and set about the midget gems – 6hrs later rock up in Glasgow.

A huge feast, plenty of banter and then to bed.

Part of Four

So having met the clients we head North and up to the Ben. Weather’s perfect and the general mood is good, with a little apprehension, all healthy though. The team’s great from the start, instant bonding, a lot of innuendos, girls are worse than guys.

Despite a couple of injuries brought to the hills, the spread across the hill is pretty good. The heat isn’t helping but everyone is in premium spirits.

Grim determination has brought the guys out at 3:45am and off up Scarfell Pike. The weather, again, is exceptional. The views are magnificent, although the temperature on the summit comes as a shock to some of the team. I meanwhile decide to rest my knees after ragging them on the Ben under the big bag. The trip is now just one week away so I’m taking no chances with injuries.

The team returned with just 2 members that are not going on to tackle Snowdon. I can’t believe the tenacity with which these two approached this challenge. One could hardly get themselves off a hill in training because of their knees, while the other could hardly stand on top of a hill because of vertigo. For the sake of my knees I stripped my pack down to a 3L bladder backpack and the top of my pack turned into a bumbag. One of the team suffered hugely from fatigue but wasn’t going to be beaten. With the smallest of encouragement, we went for the last summit and finished just shy of 24hrs, not a bad result.

My joints ache and I know I’ve given it some but I’m not broken under the weight of the big bag.