Three mountains. 37km distance. 3064 metres ascent. When they’re numbers on a page it can be hard to wrap your head around how tough the National Three Peaks challenge will be. At least, that’s what I thought as I puffed my way up Snowdon at four in the morning.
But while the question “why on earth did I sign up to do this” may have scampered across the minds of the ten colleagues taking on the challenge with me, the answer was equally clear. Our target was to raise £10,000 for The Listening Place, and with donations rolling in, each step took us closer to that goal.
To come in under the 24-hour target on a National Three Peaks challenge you have a maximum walking time of 14 hours. The rest of the time you spend on a minibus, trying to grab what sleep you can (which is as appealing as it sounds). The combination of sleep deprivation and physical exhaustion give the challenge its spartan reputation.
I am no stranger to hiking, but starting off from the bottom of Ben Nevis at 6am the reality of climbing the tallest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales began to set in. Each individual mountain is a challenge; tackled in sequence, they’re a gauntlet.
Ben Nevis is beautiful. Sweeping vistas of the Scottish Highlands reward those willing to make the sweaty trudge up to its summit. In my hubris, I had thoughts of leading the group, sherpa-like, up each mountain. I quickly found I was better suited to plodding along at the back. We needed to tackle the tallest mountain in the UK in under six hours; our final time was five and a half.
Scafell Pike is a b*stard. This thought crossed my mind several times as we took the kilometre long staircase up towards the summit from Wasdale Head. We needed to knock Scafell down in four hours; we took three and a half.
Snowdon is fun. Ish. With mist and yellow thunderstorm warning closing in, the journey up Pyg track was certainly not devoid of tension. The most technical of the three ascents, performed with minimal sleep and a body already broken by two other mountains, the ascent was brutal. Our average time was four and a half hours.
While eleven set off, between injuries and inclement weather, only seven crossed the line in time. Our goal was £10,000, we raised almost £10,200. Knowing that each £300 would translate into support for a person who feels that life is no longer worth living made the challenge worth the toil.
