So then – the Three Peaks Girls did it!! Nailed all three mountains, Ben Nevis, Scarfell and Snowdon, and all the schlepping between them in a mere 23 hours and 32 minutes, well within the 24 hour target.
It's been a whirlwind 4 days…
Thursday
Spent a wild 12 hours on the very long trog up to Scotland, made infinitely better by the energetic gossiping and catching up as
we hauled our asses northwards, picking up Rachel and Chris, the northern girls contingent, in glamorous Knutsford Services on the way.
Finally got to our overnight stop, Pitlochry, at 9pm where you can only imagine my face as we asked the woman in the pub how to get to where we were booked in, and she looked rather surprised. Maybe the name, 'Backpackers Hostel', should have given it away, or the until-that-point unknown price tag of a mere £18 a head, but yes we were indeed in two 6 people
dorms in a youth hostel for the night. And having to be grateful that the woman on Reception wasn't going to put a stranger in the last remaining bunkbed in our room! On single mattresses like corrugated iron and one bed that was made of balsa wood, unisex showers down the corridor and towels for 50p…. Oh and a rabid yowling cat trying to get through our open window at 4am, lusty for Hatch on the nearest bunkbed. Still, it was more sleep than what was to come…
Friday
Up and into mass food production mode. Three sets of sandwiches,bananas and endless snacks for each climber, fuelled by a bacon sandwich each finally emerging from the hour-to-heat-up hostel stove. Having prized Clarkie out of the fridge magnet and retro sweetie shop she drove everyone to Fort William for one final pub lunch and carbo loading for the climbers, and the stary f some rather nervous faces as the girls twigged that reality was about to come.
A few photos at the foot of gloriously sunny, woo hoo, Ben Nevis, and then at 15.54 they were off, a line of orange Myeloma t-shirts heading up hill at pace. Swiftly followed by some rather nice men in purple charity tops, our new friends for the rest of the weekend.
Clarkie, Georgie and I retired to a grass verge trying to get some kip, sadly disturbed as we'd cunningly chosen a spot by a loosely fitted cattle grid which sounded like a car smash every time something went over it.. So, back to the car park to heat up the girls' post-mountain hot dinner and make tea, wash up, refill waters and do all the other Ground Crew
palaver that I really hadn't spotted coming..
Damn good job we hadn't nipped to the pub, as Clarkie was sure they'd take at least 6 hours as she'd taken over 8 on a practice run- but they were down by 8.44pm, running for the loo and back on the bus for more food and a sleep. Except us, in the front, being 'entertained' by Clarkie's desperately untuneful singing ('Pa-pa-pa-pa-PAH Pooooooooker Face…') and steady stream of Snickers, Tangfastics, Redf Bull and Tracker bar noshing to try and stay awake.
Oh, and then the lovely Scarfell. After a foul drive from sunny Scotland tot he Nasty North in peeing rain from 9 to 2.30am, having to leap from the bus to chase sheep off the tiny road, we made it to the Lake District. My how keen the sleepy ones were to get up, not. Lead by Rachel's very kind dad, off they went in the pitch black up Scarfell at 2.38am, while we discovered how bloody freezing a minibus is at night, and that a waterproof picnic blanket really rustles every time you try and turn over, at a precarious angle on an all too narrow double seat. Zero sleep to be had, so we got up and got the kettle on, attracting two men from the next bus who swapped their 2 litre water bottle for our hot tea and pointed out that I'd left a critical bit
off the gas stove - so annoying that they were right. Tired but on time girls were down by 6.33am, and thence back in the bus, with more hot food and off to Snowdon.
Saturday
Got to Snowdon and realised we were two walkers down, both Joanna and Vicki in huge pain, so very disappointedly having to pull out of climb three to give the others a good chance of hitting the time target. Off set the final 6, Sarah Williams, Hatch, Fitz, Rachel, Chris and Tina at 11.35am. More waiting about for us, more eating of far too many calories meant for the climbers
rather than the increasingly fat Ground Crew, and then the wait for their return.
Climbed up the first bit of Snowdon with Georgie to see where they were – and the line of orange shirts at last appeared round the mountains edge. One last downward bit together, yes totally trying to share their triumphal thunder, and at 15.21 they touched the final gate at the foot of Snowdon and we'd made it!!!
A few tears, Hatch lying on the tarmac, dropping of walking poles, ripping off of now very smelly Myeloma tops, and off for a well earned pint. All massively chuffed, not least because the money target had by this point gone up to about £20k, and will probably end up more like £22k, as Sarah's work will match her one-ninth of the total. Amazing, given we started with a £5k total, and have blown it out of the water and some. People are great.
Humbling, delighting, saddening that it's related to me, warming, entertaining, gut-laughingly funny at times.. a top weekend all round. Not least the prize-giving fines session back at Rachel's welsh house on Sat night…. Tears of both joy and general emotion in full flow, despite the usually-so-controlled 11 Alpha Females in attendance. Much support coming in from Hawksey and the BBQ attendees at our house in London, covered in Myeloma balloons and singing down the phone to the 11 of us, in southern camaraderie. A weekend that has been over a year in the planning – huge thanks and hats off to Joanna Close and helpers – and a totally cracking result on the wedge front, as well as a brilliant chance for 11 old friends to catch up as if there have been no years of absence or living in different countries, between us.
Thanks girls, a really really really stupendous effort (Hatch you are really alomst a Gazelle and no longer a Rhino) and brilliant that we made it.
Scotty x