Three Peaks Challenge

The Three Peaks Challenge has been on my radar for a long time but the thought of driving five hundred miles as well as climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in 24 hours and then adding a further 500 miles at either end seemed like a combination of agony and ecstasy that favoured the former. Earlier this year I was invited by first direct Bank as one of their customers to participate in the challenge as a charity event organised with great efficiency by Childline. I was able to take a friend so Gregor, my son, came along. The bonus (more of this later) would be that all transport was provided. I accepted the challenge and joined the party at Glasgow airport where various first direct customers from different parts of the UK and some Scottish staff of first direct were picked up by minibus. And so began an adventure which brought together 72 folk, an eclectic bunch of all ages and from all parts of the UK to participate in a festival of sleepless nights, heavy sugar loading, blisters, bandaging and incarceration in minibuses driven with alarming disregard for any schedule. The transport had been subcontracted to Finlandia, a fanciful name of transport operators from Doncaster. Sibelius had composed Finlandia as a rousing call for independence. There is no doubt that our minibus logistics company fulfilled this role, they gave not a jot of concern for the objective of the Three Peaks Challenge. 

Ready to go in Glen Nevis

Glen Nevis temperature inversion

Ardgour peninsular beyond Loch Linnhe

Stob Ban and Glencoe beyond

Track up the zig-zags at about 800 metres

First snow at the summit

Ben Nevis summit

Ben Nevis vistas

Looking down to Fort William and Corpach

first down from Ben Nevis

M74 power

Scafell Pike - approach of a squad of head torches

At the midnight hour on Scafell Pike

Scafell Pike - get out the jelly babies Alex

Adding colour to Snowdon

The final rest below Snowdon

Glaslyn below Snowdon

CEO - no head in the clouds yet!

Snowdon, the final pitch

'Snowdon', the locomotive in cloud but creating evocative sounds

Our route down Snowdon

Llanberis slate quarries (now closed) below Elider Fawr

Almost down in Llanberis

Drivers on a caffeine binge, thankfully

Saturday, 22 September 2012

On arrival at a large hotel on the long drag that leads into  Fort William, we were hustled into a dining hall and served a three-course meal at a bewildering speed. It was not food to linger over. The hotel was clearly aimed at coach parties and, as we had arrived last owing to late plane arrivals, our eating time was strictly limited before the briefing began. 

We were welcomed by Mark Mullen, the CEO of first direct who was not only giving encouragement but also participating in the challenge. He seemed to know most of the first direct staff by first name and they unselfconsciously called him Mark. The first direct staff from Yorkshire and Scotland made up two-thirds of the participants with women in the clear majority. first direct had chosen the locations for their call centres in Leeds and Hamilton well. Yorkshire and Scotland are places whose accents are the most trusted and they are formidable folk as proved by providing about half of the British gold medals at the Olympics. The rest of us were lucky customers, Childline staff and some HSBC staff who had contrived to get in on the act.  We were to be allocated into seven teams, roughly split according to estimated finishing times. Each team was given a name like Everest and Kilimanjaro and allocated to a minibus. Gregor and I were keen to do as quick a time as possible but my age probably acted as a handicap so we were in the second bus, Kilimanjaro. The bonus was that Mark Mullen was also in Kilimanjaro and he seemed exceptionally able and inclusive.

Mark Mullen finessed the link between Childline and first direct with great aplomb.  Both are 24/7/365 organisations whose job is to be focused on the needs of their clients and to always be responsive. first direct supports Childline as part of their corporate social responsibility and raises millions each year to help children with nowhere else to turn.

We were then given the schedule for the next day. Childline had subcontracted the transport to Finlandia and the mountain guiding to eight point two, who organise challenging events for charity. Travel times would be 5 hours for the journey from Fort William to Wasdale and another 5 hours to Snowdon including pit stops for food.  This left 14 hours for walking - 5 to 6 hours for Ben Nevis, 4 to 5 hours for Scafell Pike and 4 hours for Snowdon.  We were urged to avoid wasting time and to be prepared to exit the minibuses and start walking promptly on arrival at the various locations. Water would be on all the buses and there would be marshals on Ben Nevis. Guides would take us up Scafell Pike and Snowdon which were likely to be climbed in the dark. The briefing was positive and any apprehension amongst the participants was allayed by the collective spirit of the event.

Ben Nevis    start     8:45am
                     finish  12:55pm
Ascent:         2hrs  12 minutes 
Total Time:   4hrs  10 minutes (includes 15 mins at summit)

The next morning we were scheduled to leave the hotel at 8:00am and start the Ben Nevis climb before 8:30am.  This was when the transport logistical planning began to go awry. Our driver had made an extra trip back to Glasgow overnight to pick up some latecomers and had not had much sleep. We waited for him to arrive and then have a smoke before leaving. We were the last group to start at 8:45am and the track up Ben Nevis was clogged with walkers, some attempting the National Three Peaks Challenge but other groups climbing Ben Nevis for various charities. There were other charity events apart from first direct on the three peaks challenge and as we began the ascent we left a car park which was a sea of white minibuses. The consolation for the pilgrims was the weather, a cold sunny morning with no wind and visibility that was excellent.

Early on the ascent, we were able to see the temperature inversion in the glen and the Mamores reared up in the east, resplendent against the azure September skies. Our group were getting to know each other and we stayed together as a team until we were above the lochan at 700 metres. We had a short break for everyone to regroup and to check that everyone was feeling well.  As we started the steep zig zags, the group splintered. There were checkpoints along the way and the conditions were perfect for walking. As we approached the summit plateau we were regaled with the first snow of the autumn. There were dozens of walkers at the summit which at the time we arrived had attracted the only cloud in the Highlands.

After photographs, I climbed to the icy cairn and had to slide down the steep ice-covered steps which had become a helter-skelter. Gregor and I began a fairly speedy descent so that we could be well within the 5-hour target for Ben Nevis. As we ran down the final section I tripped over a stone and took to flight, hands and knees grazed and trousers ripped. We had made it down in just over 4 hours despite 15 minutes of talking and photographing at the summit. Gregor and I were offered places on the first bus because quite a few of this team were still on the hill but this seemed a bit unfair to them and we liked the people in Kilimanjaro so we declined the offer.

Our team were all down by 2pm, within the schedule for a sub-24-hour round.  There followed fifteen minutes of faffing about loading and reloading the luggage. Then the drivers had a last couple of cigarettes and we were off. The head honcho instructed the drivers where to stop and set the route on the TomTom before we began the journey south. We were hopeful that we would make Wasdale by 7:15pm following the timing schedule. This would give us an hour or so of light to hasten the outing on Scafell Pike. Alas, we had not factored in that our driver and co-driver were straight out of a Coen Brothers film - we were the extras in a British adaptation with our drivers playing Dumb and Dumber.

The quick food stop at Dumbarton was to pick up food from M&S Simply Food.  We agreed on a 15-minute stop but the driver claimed he needed a 20-minute rest halt despite having a relief driver. It was 45 minutes later before the cigarettes were finished and we got underway. A toilet stop at Gretna once again ballooned into a 20-minute smoking halt for the drivers. Although there was a tinnitus of doubt we still assumed we would arrive in the light so there was no need to unpack our walking stuff from the rear of the minibus. If only we had known.

Shortly afterwards, despite contrary instructions from the TomTom, we passed the turn-off to Whitehaven at Carlisle and continued on the M6 to Penrith and then doubled back to Keswick and Cockermouth, an extra 30 miles or so. Then the TomTom guided us through all the hamlets on the back roads between Cockermouth and Gosforth instead of keeping to the main road. It was dark and 9:15pm before we arrived at the muddy crowded parking space at Wasdale Head. We retrieved our bags standing in the puddle that the bus had been parked in and changed in the dark before the guide gave us instructions - another fifteen minutes had been wasted.

Scafell Pike: start    9:35pm, 22 September  
                     finish   3:11am,  23 September
Ascent:         2 hours 47 minutes   
Total Time:   5 hours 36 minutes (includes 15 mins at summit)

The guide for this section of the walk announced himself with a self-confidence that disguised his woeful lack of local hill knowledge or empathy with the party. We were to have a boot inspection and shoes would not be allowed. Fortunately, all but three in the party were wearing trail shoes so he had to back down. We were off at last over 2 hours later than we should have been, head torches picking the trail up Brown Tongue. Some of our squad were struggling to regain their rhythm on the hill, not surprisingly after seven and a half hours crammed in a minibus.

It was a slow plod which got slower when the guide lost the route. Mark Mullen pointed out where we should cross Lingmell Ghyll but the guide ignored this and took us further up and when we eventually crossed the stream we could not find the path. A 15-minute delay ensued whilst the guide examined his GPS and map before we were instructed to carry on up the gill. It was the final proof that the guide was a liability. Eventually, Gregor and I breached instructions and climbed the grassy slopes to the right to find the path and advised the rest of the party to follow. The head torches of the parties coming down the hill had been an obvious clue. The guide had lost all respect and became a passenger. It was the low point of the walk as we knew that the 24 hours was no longer possible, even assuming Dumb and Dumber could get us to Snowdon this side of dawn.

The consolation was the night sky. We had left Fort William as the second party, there were now fifth with other groups presumably blessed with non-smoking drivers and competent guides. It was quite eerie to see the approach of descending squads with head torches flickering in unison but they helped prevent any further mishaps on the ascent. The rock-strewn path was not easy going in the dark but the summit arrived and we were encouraged by the guide who was no longer trusted on navigation matters to eat, drink and take a breather before starting the descent. There was a cold wind blowing and the best approach would have been to keep moving in these circumstances. At least it was a relief to discover that Sellafield was not glowing in the dark and the stars, denied any light pollution, had the clarity of a textbook.

We all struggled to get going again after getting cold at the summit and it seemed a long descent despite keeping to the path on the return. Several members of the group expressed doubt about having the energy or the legs to climb Snowdon as well. Carol even wanted to call a taxi and go home. Unfortunately, the drivers, living up to Finlandia's obsession with independent decisions, had moved the minibus a mile back up the road which added another 20 minutes to the outing. We had the usual faffing about as we searched for bags, changed in the dark, searched for the water which Finlandia had not loaded on the bus and finally, after the drivers finished smoking, began the journey south.

The co-driver had neither driven the minibus nor used a TomTom before.  After asking what the red line on the TomTom was for, he instructed one of the party who suffered travel sickness to move back from the front row, he didn't want anyone sitting near him. He managed to negotiate the narrow road out of Wasdale and then proceeded to narrowly avoid mowing through a flock of sheep on the road, we all practised the brace position. A minute later the same happened. Snowdon was beginning to appear a distant dream. It seemed easier to sleep and no one needed to be told to strap into their seat belts.

We were awoken on the M6 at the Forton service station to be told we were almost out of fuel and that the fuel card was not accepted at this station. The drivers went to see if there was any chance of getting fuel from another pump. It took another twenty minutes before we were underway after a game of musical pumps. Dawn arrived as we left the M6, we had hoped to be in Snowdon by this time. Carol, a first direct training adviser from Hamilton, had blistered on Scafell Pike and in true Lanarkshire fashion tried to burst the blister with her Swiss army knife using the corkscrew. Fortunately, Mark Mullen was on hand and he wiped the blade with a baby wipe, opened the blister to release the fluid and applied a Compeed plaster. I quipped at the time 'CEO cuts staff' but with skills like this and with responsibility for the first direct speedy and courteous telephone style perhaps they should be bidding to run NHS24.

The tales of travel woe continued and by the simple expedient of putting Llanberis in the TomTom, they managed to add a further 20 miles to the journey. Although we were finishing at Llanberis, we had to backtrack to Pen y Pass to start the climb. 

 

Snowdon:   start 9:15am     Pen y pass
                    finish 1:12pm  Llanberis Hotel

Ascent:        2 hours 7 minutes   
Total Time:  3 hours 57 minutes (including 5 mins for map reading test)

It appeared that most of the other minibuses were running late as well. We did not start out until 9:15am, the total time on the minibus including stops had been 14 hours 44 minutes, almost 5 hours longer than scheduled.  The Snowdon guide had been waiting 4 hours for us, he told us that anyone completing in 14 hours would have completed an 'honourable' Three Peaks Challenge but that we had to stay with him although he only had been recruited on the assumption we would be starting in the dark.  

So another slowish walk up the Pyg track. The clouds had arrived with Wales and the pressure was dropping, the summits were not visible. It is a well-made and easy path, more of a staircase really and a guide was probably unnecessary even in the dark. There had been a perceptible shift of mood since Scafell, Alex, from Childline fed us with her jelly babies and everyone in the group seemed to be walking well, confident of completing the challenge. The guide let us split up after the final steep section at 750 metres with an instruction to stay together. Gregor and I, together with one other charged off to break the 14 hours. We passed the throng of day trippers, dozens of dogs and family groups. What is it about Wales and dogs?

We tore up the last 300 metres of ascent and visited the cairn which was being whipped by a strong wind. One of the steam locomotives, Snowdon, was arriving at the summit heralded by the evocative sound of a steam engine echoing around the mountain.  After passing a map reading test set by the guide who was waiting for us at the finger rock, we began the descent but he directed us down the wrong path (intentionally or not) which made for an interesting excursion having to descend into another valley and then wade a river to get down to Llanberis. We found our way through some old farmsteads which were compounds for more barking dogs. It had added about 30 minutes to the descent so we decided to run the last couple of miles to be sure of beating the 14 hours which was accomplished with seventeen minutes to spare.

Brunch was available in the hotel which had a feel of the 1980's. Beer was only £1.80 in the bar, everyone supported Liverpool and the furniture had not been replaced for decades. Above Llanberis were the massive slate workings which are no longer active. It had been over twenty years since I visited North Wales for the Snowdon Marathon and time seems to have stood still since.  The rest of the group filtered in over the next hour or so and it was moving to see the sheer delight on their faces. Alex had told me on Ben Nevis that she only expected to complete one mountain but she got stronger on each one and arrived in Llanberis in the second group to finish. We had 12 finishers out of 13 starters. More important we had survived the adventure and stocked up on memories and stories that will linger long. The journey back required us to be dropped at Warrington to catch our train. We had two hours, 10 minutes more than the TomTom calculated was needed for the journey.  We missed it of course but there was another one half an hour later and we were in Glasgow by 9pm.

The lesson, if there is any, is that the group supported each other and got there despite the handicap of transport and guides who seemed to think that the 24-hour challenge was for them alone. The real winners were Childline and the well-being and self-esteem of those who had volunteered and conquered the challenge. Most of all, during several long chats with Mark Mullen, I appreciated why first direct worked so successfully. He explained how banking is easy to manage if you focus on the needs of the customers of personal banking and do not get diverted into all the other dubious activities that have been the downfall of the big banks. He also had the midas touch of knowing and caring about his staff and the customers.