Three Peaks Challenge - Latest News

3 July 2003 - £4,000 raised
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29 June 2003 - Success!
All six members of the family, plus the two dogs of course, successfully completed the challenge at 5:35pm on Sunday in a time of 23 hours 10 minutes.

We started the challenge at 6:25pm on Saturday and managed to complete Ben Nevis in 4 hours 30 minutes, getting down around 11pm just as it started to go dark. After a very wet day in Scotland the cloud was still so low in Glen Nevis that just half way up the mountain we were up above the clouds in the evening sunshine, looking down on a sea of clouds below - a wonderful start to the challenge.

The ride in the minibus through the night to Wasdale was pretty uncomfortable, but by 5:30am when we arrived, the sun was up and the sky was blue. The Scafell Pike ascent was pretty gruelling, but we made good time and were rewarded with fantastic views - we could even pick out the colour of the houses on the Isle of Man. We were back down again with a very good time for Scafell Pike of 3 hours 10 minutes, so were back on the road again by 8:45am.

The fast times on Ben Nevis and Scafell Pike proved to be very necessary, as the sunshine brought out the crowds onto the roads in North Wales and we lost about 40 minutes in traffic jams. The trip to Pen y Pass took 5 hours, so it was about 1:50pm by the time we started up Snowdon on the Pyg Track. The climb up in the sun was very hot, but fortunately as we got higher the breeze picked up. We were pretty tired by now, but still made good time up the mountain. The summit came as a bit of a shock with the crowds and the diesel fumes from the train! We came back down by the MIners Track with plenty of time to spare, so slowed down a bit and let the dogs cool off in the lake. The walk out on the Miners track proved to be longer than we thought and our time on Snowdon ended up at 3 hours 45 minutes, giving us a total time of 23 hours 10 minutes.

9 June 2003
Steve got in some good training in the Lakes last week, and his girlfriend gradually learnt to question suggestions like "Shall we just nip up Striding Edge after lunch?". They 'borrowed' the dogs for the week, so the dogs are now fully prepared for the challenge too.

29 May 2003
Training is going well - Kathie, Tony and Mike made it up Scafell Pike in 1 hour 50 minutes on a trial run (walk, actually) today. Then they spoilt it all by sitting around for 40 minutes in the sunshine on the top, before descending in 1 hour 20 minutes. Whether they can do it that fast at five in the morning after doing Ben Nevis first remains to be seen!

Steve is spending next week in the Lake District with his girlfriend - I'm not sure if she realises his motives for picking that particular holiday location!

23 May 2003
Tony has succeeded in persuading colleagues at BCP to form a second team for the challenge - just to liven things up a bit with a bit of competitive spirit - and to raise some more sponsorship for Christie's against Cancer.