Chapter 3: The Three Peaks - They're hard work!

Three Steps To Heaven.

Another adventure I’ve fancied doing - to start at Fort William in Scotland – climb up and down Ben Nevis, drive to Scarfell Pike in England, climb that and finally drive to Snowden in Wales and climb up and down that – all within 24 hours. The highest peaks in each country.

Well, I managed it yesterday but today I had to call out Mountain rescue as I’m trapped at the top of the stairs unable to put one foot in front of the other, to enable myself to walk down stairs to the kitchen.

Without access to food and with nightfall coming I’m worried. I’ve tried whistling three times (SOS!) for the wife, but I’ve got my suspicions she’s ignoring me.

I’ll try txting her – if I can get a signal this high! – otherwise I’ll better slip back under the duvet and avoid the onset of hypothermia.

Honestly I thought this challenge would be straightforward. I was doing it with 20+ local London guys, many of them ‘walkers’. And I thought the toughest bit would be staying awake through the 12 hours of actual walking.

How wrong I was. This is the toughest thing I have ever done. It really is hard hard work.

Ben Nevis is a long steep path but as it was first off I made a quick pace up the mountain but then found the experienced walkers around me were running back down!! – so off I went and managed to get down within 3hrs 9 mins.

Scarfell Pike is a lot harder. It’s a real scramble up to the summit. The weather was a bit worse and the paths are covered in boulders making it impossible to make fast progress, especially down. Talking of which, walking down for hours at a time is an absolute nightmare. I cycle race so my calves are good for going up but the front of my thighs and knees have no experience of being used as breaks for my body after every single step – to stop yourself going too fast.

We arrived at Snowden at 11pm and managed to get lost on the nearest to actual rock climbing that we undertook, on a steep slope, covered in boulders, in pitch black, cold and tired and lost – it was great fun! When we got to the ridge it was blasting cold wind across us and the temperature dropped massively.

Coming down Snowden was the worst 90 minutes of non-stop clambering down over rocks – hard hard work on the knees. We made it back to sea level at 3.30am

I thought some of this would be boring but you have to watch every single step you take so that your footing will be secure – of which about 20 times coming down Snowden it wasn’t!

We made it though – 21 hours and 21 minutes

And it feels great – a great team bonding effort. At one with nature and having to rely on your physical strength to survive it. I loved it and can’t wait to do something similar again.

Back to top

Home