21 Jun 2006 - Three Peaks (Well, okay, let's say two!)
The Three Peaks (Well, okay, lets say two!)
The three peaks is a challenge where you have to climb the three highest points in England, Wales and Scotland, and not only climb up and down them, but get to them within 24 hours!
Neil (Senior Project Worker) and Ron (Finance Officer) organised a trip this year to do just that. Apart from themselves climbing, there was Andy, one of our project workers here, plus some friends and family of Andy; namely his nephew Danny (17), friend David (17), friend Anthony (27). Then yours truly (Gregory - Senior Project Worker) and my 15 year old son, Michael. My job was to do most of the driving.
Neil, Andy and Ron have done the 3 peaks before, and Ron is an experienced hill walker. However, this time a mini-bus was booked and we went up in some style and room. Unfortunately, the van was governed to 100kph (62mph), and we really needed to do 80 - 90 mph to keep travelling times down.
The first leg is to drive to Fort William and climb Ben Nevis. We went via Scotch Corner, then across country to Penarth. I have to say that we passed some wonderful country on the way. The great rolling plains of Lincolnshire. then the great humped hills of the Pennines, all dark and forbidding. Then the sun would break through and show up the greens and mauves of the fields and the miles of stonewalling.
The rain came down with a vengeance once we got to Glasgow, in fact it did not stop until we were coming home the following day. Through Glasgow, over the Erskine Bridge - The Clyde - then Loch Lomond. Driving it was not always easy to see the views but the clouds were low, and running down the sides of the hills great rivers and waterfalls of water. This road is the A82, and it is a windy, narrow road, with rocks and trees closing in either side so it leads to slow speeds.
Then through Glen Coe, again great hills either side, with rivers running down the side, great rock falls everywhere. The rivers are beds of rock and the water was rushing down the rivers, boiling and frothing over the boulders on the way down. Then suddenly the sun would peak out and show the greens and grey of the hills - spectacular stuff.
At last we were into Fort William and the Ben Nevis visitor centre. It was 5.30pm and by 6.00pm, the six walkers were off. The weather was atrocious, with low cloud, and all the rivers boiling with water. Ben Nevis is not a mountain; it's really a big hill, but do not take it for granted. Its 4406 ft high, the highest point in the UK, and it's a granite massif. You must stick to the marked path and its really is for experienced walkers. The average temperature is 0 degrees C. The previous Friday a 37-year-old man from Chesterfield collapsed and died on the hillside. He is one of about 8 people who die every year on the hill.
They were aiming for about 5 hours, but after a couple of hours Neil returned, his knee had popped out, so his climbing was over. At 11pm we stood by the river, in the pouring rain and dark being eaten alive by midges, looking out for the rest. A team of 7 came down first; they said our lads were an hour behind them. Soon we saw their torches shining in the dark, and we found it quite exciting to know they were on their way down. By 12.30 am they were by the van. I had taken a small stove up and we boiled water for hot drinks. The conditions had been bad, continual rain, the wet slippery rocks, sudden clouds blotting out the way, and extreme cold. The torches were invaluable as they could pick out the rocks on the way down. They were wet through, so while they changed we started the journey back the way we came and off to Scafell Pike in Cumbria.
I cannot remember the mileage, but it's a good 4 to 5 hours drive to Scafell. Neil drove to south of Glasgow, and he did really well on the windy road through Glen Coe and Loch Lomond. On the M74 we met a wide load and were stuck for many miles crawling along. It's this sort of hold-up, coupled with the speed limiter that makes the 24-hour time limit seem hard to beat.
get to Scafell you have to drive from Penrith across to Whitehaven, then down to a little village called Gosforth. From there you head for Wast Water and Wasdale Head. Into a National Trust car park and there is Scafell Pike. This is smaller than Ben Nevis, only 978 metres high, as against 1344 metres. Again wonderful scenery, but rain like I have never seen before. The cloud came down and obscured the tops, the rain came down like sheets, and the rivers were full and frothing with water. Ron said Nevis had been enough for him so our intrepid quartet left in the pouring rain. They took 4 hours to do Scafell, and again conditions were horrendous, low cloud to disorientate them, torrential rain, flooded streams to cross, and extreme cold. We met three men from Kent who said it was so cold they gave up before the top.
We bumped into the van man with the seven climbers we had met on Ben Nevis; he said they were an hour behind schedule. He was just waiting to round them up and fly off to Snowdon. His van could easily do 90mph! But we were well behind, it was nearly 2 pm and we still had over 200 miles to get to Snowdon, climb it, and then get back to Stevenage for 8 the following morning - the time to return the van. Not only that, our 24 hour time period expired in four hours time - 6pm! Only Andy wanted to climb Snowdon, and my boy! They had no more dry clothing, everything was wet through and their bodies were beginning to suffer. So very reluctantly we packed up and beat our way back home.
We travelled over 1800 kilometres (sorry its in foreign language but the van was only on kph) and if you follow our map round you will see that no route is direct, in fact it has made me think that if it can be done in 24 hours then I do not believe them!
If we had prepared ourselves a little more military like then we might have done it, but we had a great two days, a great time chatting, laughing, ragging each other, and some of them walked up two peaks, and I just wish I was a few years younger to have joined them. Will they go next year? If they do I hope I get a chance to go again.
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