After the complete hash we made of our first attempt at the 3 peaks in 2005, Andrew regarded it as a nightmare to which he’d never return. I regarded it as failure and unfinished business, to which I had to return. But it was 10 years before I actually got round to it. In 2015 I floated the idea of having another go at it, and was delighted when not only Andrew signed up for it, but my older son Jack, his partner Maud and Maud’s mum, Odile said they wanted to be part of the attempt too. For reasons of timings and economy, our plan was to all squeeze in to one car, and again do the challenge from south to north. We again set ourselves an unconventional and challenging schedule, leaving Southborough at 1pm to be comfortably ready for a 7pm start from Pen-y-pas up the Pyg track. The weather near the top of Snowdon was again very unfriendly for late June,
but we were up and down bang on schedule and were on the road for Wasdale Head by 10.30 pm, just as darkness had fallen. This timed perfectly for a short night’s drive to Wasdale head, arriving still in darkness at 02.55am. We made an error by parking a good 10 minutes walk away from the correct start point. Setting off for Scafell Pike by torchlight in cool damp conditions, we worked our way up as daybreak slowly lit the sky. The hike to the top seemed further than I’d expected, and still in semi-darkness route finding was far from easy. The closer you get to the top, the landscape becomes a mass of shattered rocks scattered wildly as far as the eye can see. By the time we made the top, the weather had again become pretty vile with fierce, cold winds howling around us.
We spent no more than a couple of minutes at the top before retracing our steps back down, during which both Maud and Odile fell several times on slippery wet rock, leading to some bumps and bruises that would later curtail the successful completion for them both. A navigating error on the way back down took us to the car park we should have been in, and further rechecking and re-routing wasted more time before we got back to the car having lost a good 30 minutes on our schedule. At a bit of a physical and psychological low point we were slow getting away, but set off for Fort William with success still possible. We started to think the game was up though, when about 30 miles north of Glasgow we became the back of a non-moving traffic jam for half an hour. By the time we finally got moving again, there were clear differences in the amount of optimism about completing within 24 hours. The mood was further depressed when Odile said that because of the falls on Scafell she was concerned about further damaging a recent shoulder injury so she would not be attempting Ben Nevis. In support of her mum, Maud decided to keep her company and stay at the foot of Ben Nevis. A typically unselfish act, as there is no doubt that Maud would have easily completed the challenge inside 24 hours.
Without further problems we arrived at the foot of Ben Nevis 45 minutes off the pace, but having built in a little “slack” into the time required for the final climb, it was still do-able with 5 hrs 15 minutes left on the clock. As Andrew started to fall off the pace he insisted that Jack and I push on and he’d keep on at his own pace. The weather was bad all the way to the top, and the combination of low cloud, “white-out” snow fields and very low temperature made the last few hundred metres a challenge, but we still made good time. Hitting the summit at about 4.10 pm, amazingly we were completely alone at the top, having been the only people at the summit of all 3 peaks, which I think is a rare achievement in itself!
As we descended across the snowfields Jack and I were very pleased to see Andrew approaching. He had made better time up the mountain than we had expected. We assured him that getting down inside 24 hours was still on. We descended without incident and realised we were going to make the time with a bit of margin. Returning to the base we completed the task in 23 hours and 29 minutes, very well pleased. That pleasure was doubled when just 20 minutes later Andrew came jogging in, having made an impressive and fast descent.
Nearly a great result, but once again, I needed to go back and do it faster. Part 3 next time.
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