My Story
The challenge started with the onset of storm babet inbound. We were feeling the effects of the storm on the long drive to fort William. As the dark clouds came over Thursday evening the forecast wasn’t promising for the next day with the worst weather on the mountain set for 1pm lunchtime. with gusts of 90mph which is the time we would arrive at the summit. We had no choice but to face reality there was no escape from the storm and the high winds. We had a full Scottish breakfast and some oats to prepare ourself. We faced an extremely challenging hike with incredible gusts of winds on the summit and for those that have seen the videos we recorded, we were forced to lie down many times throughout the challenge. The winds were a challenge but we got to the top and we got down safely in just under 4 1/2 hours. The next leg to scaffel was going to be tough for driving and for sleeping with the shared driving with the storm in full flight. Unlucky for us the update for Scafell was upgraded to a yellow weather warning for wind speed steady at 60 with gusts of 75mph. Again there was no hiding as we had to complete to get inside 24hrs. With our head torches on we completed this very difficult mountain in complete darkness and like Ben Nevis not a soul around. The signal was awful also with the only chuckle picking up Isle of Man netowk on EE charging Colin 2.99 for using the network. Again the steep climb with elements of scrambling and incomplete walkways was a struggle. Again we had to get low at times on and around the summit but we stuck together as a three and we carried on as Barmy as it felt at the time. We did in 4 hours. Exhausted we had a drive in challenging conditions to north wales to tackle snowdon. We lost 45 mins with the flooding issues and road closures and had to pick up roads with trial and error as there was abandoned cars left from the days events. Several occasions we drive through the roads where the rivers were running fast on the roads. We didn’t panic we went back to the coastal roads and picked up snowdon from around the back thankfully getting us there. We decided to take the Llamberis path from previous experience although longer we knew we had a big enough window to complete the challenge doing it. We were thankful for the weather calming to 40mph winds which was a luxury and ultimately the best of the three and in complete light pretty much starting in the morning. Ultimately we got up and down and we completed the challenge in 23hrs 27mins. Finishing at a waterfall at the base of the mountain with added sentimental value to finish. A great challenge in very tough conditions but we stuck as a team and had a lot of fun along the way! Ultimately we raised over 4k for cancer research which is what we set out to do. Thanks for everyone who sponsored us and pushed us to complete the challenge
