Postscript

2018 is almost over and JustGiving has given me notice that my fund-raising account will be closed down before the New Year, so that finishes the whole adventure.

The final total for my donations was  £2,000.37, plus a load of Gift Aid on top of that – twice the target I set at the outset so thank you to everyone who contributed.

And we seem to have inspired others to follow. Bishop Fleming a putting on a team to take the challenge in 2019 as part of our efforts to raise £100k for charity in our 100th year.

And in case anyone asks …  NO!

I am not climbing Scafell Pike again but I have volunteered to drive the bus and support the climbers.

Now I am looking for a new adventure in 2019 to keep my exercise regime running so this may not be the last blog after all …

And finally …

A week on and my wife and I are planning to go for a walk, but just a gentle one. No yomping off ahead, and hopefully we will get some sloes for this year’s sloe gin.

And we may find a quiet spot to bury my beloved yetis. (Sniff)

I played golf during the week and my legs are fine but the mental scars of Scafell may take longer to heal. That is it for challenges, but I have got my love of hill waking back, although if I see Scafell Pike again I will run screaming in the other direction.

The fund raising total, the combined total for Ben and I, has just passed £3,000, plus gift aid, which is great news. We were hoping for £2,750 (to beat last year) and money is still coming in.

Thank you to everyone for your donations, messages of support, mickey-taking and help, both in raising money for a very worthy charity and in proving that there is life in this old dog yet.

Thank you also for taking the time to read this blog. I have enjoyed writing it and hope you have enjoyed reading it.

The grumpy old man is signing off.

Homeward bound

The hotel was great – a proper twin room, and a hairdryer to dry my trousers. I only had two pairs and both were wet, so the least wet pair were dried off as much as possible. Dinner was delicious and good value and we had a drink, or two, or three, but it was not a late night – we were shattered and the euphoria of success can only keep the body running for a while.

I’d woken with no blisters, with pain free ankles and knees but someone had replaced my calf muscles in the night with solid wood. The walk down one floor to the restaurant was agonising – we took the lift down to reception. Sad! Breakfast was the best yet but the restaurant was full of elderly people, who were all walking better than we were.

I left Ben, Donna and Sam to get the hire car from Enterprise cars in Bangor. We had a one-way hire to Exeter to pick up my car and I’d booked a MPV to give us room for our gear and to stretch out. But with my calf muscles, I wished I’d booked an automatic. We had a 5 hour drive in the hire car ahead of us, a lot of it on busy A roads, then nearly 2 hours (for me at least) in mine.

At the hire company, they asked if I’d mind having an automatic at no extra charge – I could have jumped over the counter and kissed him, if I could have jumped, but I played it cool, and agreed to take it.

The journey home was uneventful. We stopped after 3 hours at Gloucester, changed cars at Exeter and rolled into the Air Ambulance HQ as the sun was setting on a beautiful Cornish evening. After transferring Sam and Donna’s gear into Donna’s car,     and leaving them talking to Paula, the charity’s chief exec who was just on her way to Newquay airport, we heard a helicopter starting up so Ben and I went to the crash gate in time to see the Air Ambulance take off and head up along the coast and into the sunset. It was a poignant end to the challenge and could not have been scripted any better.

Snowdon

We arrived at the services on the M6 to grab some hot food but I dashed to the toilets to dry off and change. I had one complete change of  walking clothes, but my waterproofs were all very wet, and my boots saturated.

There was nothing hot I dare eat at the services – I was not feeling great (stomach trouble) and wondered whether my weakness on Scafell was partly due to my IBS having been triggered by some high fructose corn syrup in the pudding in Glasgow on Friday evening – so just had a coffee. Just being dry again, and in daylight, perked us up. One mountain to go.

Snowdon was supposed to be dry. According to Jimbo, the delays on and after Scafell meant the bad weather would have passed. They also meant we’d be unlikely to complete in 24 hours but he emphasised that doing the 3 mountains without a break is an achievement and climbing Scafell in that weather doubly so. The time was no longer an issue. We just wanted to complete the climb.

We had to get our gear on because we’d not be able to park at Snowdon, and we’d drop our gear at the hotel in Llanberis first because Andy would be leaving us at the car park – there was a bed at home with his name on it. Lucky b******! We had to climb another bloody mountain.

I packed my saturated waterproof trousers, just in case, and the old, rejected, waterproof top and wore the damp soft-shell.

Andy was right in that he could not park, but Jimbo was wrong – it was still raining. Jimbo seemed to be always wrong, always understating the weather and always underestimating the time to the next stop – or was he just a good psychologist. On reflection, I think the latter and am grateful as it helped, although I swore about it more than once on the challenge.

So waterproofs on and off we went – like a bunch of mountain goats. What happened to the heavy legs of the early hours? The Pyg trail on Snowdon is a beautiful walk, even in the drizzle, although Sam and Donna struggled with some of the boulders and scrambles – they did not have the leg length for the trail and Sam in particular found it hard. They were then slower than us and Jimbo stayed with them – torturing them with his cheese jokes – leaving us to walk ahead then wait, as we had done on  Ben Nevis.

But we were waiting for longer and the time was ticking.

We waited, the four of us, as instructed at a point overlooking the cwm near the start of the zig-zags that led to the summit. We had made good time and we reckoned that if we could finish within an hour, we’d be within the 24 hours (using the modern convention of 14 hours walking plus a 10 hour travel and transition allowance). We all agreed we wanted to give a go but that we’d not make it at Sam & Donna’s pace. Jimbo had been adamant at keeping the group together and was not happy at the extent we were pushing it but Ben and I felt really uncomfortable walking at the girl’s pace. There was a silence and Ben asked: “So who will ask Jimbo?”, just as he and the girls came into sight.

I asked Jimbo whether it was possible to get to the top in an hour. He said it was and we told him we wanted to give it a go, convinced him we knew the way (which we did) and he agreed, telling us to wait in the summit cafe. But first he wanted to tell us about the cwm which was where a watery spirit had given a majic sword to King Arthur. That was Dosmary Pool in Cornwall, I said, at which point Jimbo told us to bugger off, so we did.

Ben shot off like a scalded cat, with me in hot pursuit and Gary and Anna left in our wake. We  reached the zig-zags which, unlike the path on Ben Nevis, required a lot of scrambling. Ben was faster at that than I, and I was then struggling to catch him up on the steep slopes between scrambles. He kept stopping to look back so I signalled him to go on. Shortly after we split, I came to a low wall where a large crowd were resting. I stopped too, had the rest of my flapjack, a long drink, and a breather. Then it was off again but I was stuck behind a vary large and very slow girl who was not listening to my requests to pass, so it was elbows out, a skip along the path edge (which I’d never have been able to do without Coach Cairley’s hypnotism session) and on on up into the clouds.

That did not last. That bit was steep – no more scrambles but it was a slog – and the pace slowed. I was checking my watch every 40 seconds or so, and trying to push on, but the cloud was concealing the target. I had no idea how far was left and my legs were leaden.

Then a stone obelisk appeared in the mist. That could only be the junction of the Pyg and Llanberis tracks and I knew the path was wider from then running beside the railway line – the summit was near. That gave me a speed boost – for about a minute. I overheard something asking how much further and the reply was “20 minutes, maybe 15”. If that was right, I’d not make it, but Ben would surely have done so.

I gave it a go – the other walker may have been wrong – but it was still steep with no sign of a summit plateau. Then I saw a green light which could only be the signal at the entrance to the station. I still had a few minutes in hand so I started to run.

When I say run, it was not running as commonly understood. My brain was sending the signals but the legs were struggling to comply. Anyone watching would have seen a bedraggled tramp doing an impersonation of Neil Armstrong skipping on the moon. But it was as near to running as I was going to get.

Then a mound appeared with a line of people beside it – the Snowdon summit cairn – but there was a queue, and those on top were not coming down. I remebered the cairn from when we’d taken the train up some 25 years before and there were steps up and down, so hurtled ( insofar as I could hurtle) round the back and bounded (insofar as I could bound) up the down stairs to protests from the queue, slapped (slapping I could still do) the top of the trig point and checked my watch. 13:54 and a bit. I’d done it.

I quickly (insofar as – you get the idea) went down the steps and slowly (not that anyone could tell the difference) walked to the station cafe, where I found Ben waiting – looking very pleased with himself.  We’d done it!

Gary and Anna appeared 5 minutes later saying they’d done it, arriving seconds before 2pm. They then convinced me that I’d been 5 minutes inside the time and all four of us were euphoric. I checked the times later in the hotel and my time was right, but Gary and Anna were down Ben Nevis and Scafell before me so may have had more time for Snowdon. I did not discuss it with them – I could not see the point.

We were victorious, including Donna and Sam who arrived 15 minutes later. We’d all had issues, we all had conquered them and we’d all walked up the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales within 24 hours (ish) in wet and windy conditions. Who cared about the “ish”? We knew what we had all achieved and, like Hilary and Tensing on Everest (yes I know that’s a bit melodramatic), the team had achieved it – Andy too, even though he’d barely moved 5 feet from the bus, he‘d been a rock of support and done his utmost to help us achieve the objective.

The spirits were high and then the cloud cleared, as if a big hand had pulled back the curtains and the view was magnificent. We could see right out to sea, over the Snowdon range and over Anglesey.

We took the obligatory photos and then we had to walk to the hotel, down the Llanberis track, which three of us had walked before. Gary and Anna had jogged down it last time, a couple of months before, as that was easier on the knees and feet, but would not be doing so today. My wife had lost toe nails 25 years before. It was a horribly long steep path. Not difficult or slippery like Scafell but long, the feet slide forwards in the boots and squash the toes and the knees and calf muscles protest.

Ben developed a backward walking technique, Gary did a crabbing walk, and we all struggled down. I photographed, tweeted and texted to pass the time, and called my wife. And best of all, unlike Scafell and Ben Nevis, I did not fall once on the descent. Ben disagrees but that was not a fall – I just missed a rock I was aiming to sit on!

We eventually got to the hotel where Gary and Anna’s family were waiting, including their son Leo, for whose therapy centre they were raising money. Leo was 2 but was the size of a  9 month old with similar physical development to a 9 month old, but what a cheerful little chap.

We said our goodbyes to Jimbo, the hero of the weekend – he had been brilliant.

He was encouraging, knowledgeable and tireless – and the reason we‘d all succeeded. The whole team had gelled really well, particularly considering we did not know each other – Gary and Anna did, obviously, and Sam and Donna were best friends, I worked in the same building but barely knew Ben, Ben and I had walked once with Sam and Donna, and Jimbo and Andy had never worked together before. But everyone helped each other, there were no issues at all and it paid off. Apart from the walking, it had been a great weekend!

And we’d done it!

 

Scafell Pike

We had a brief stop at Gretna services and sorted our kit ready for a wet mountain. The forecast had worsened and it seemed likely we would be walking up in rain and not just down, and so it proved.

As we approached the car park we could see a line of flickering lights heading up into the sky. This was the headtorches of the 3Peaks walkers coming down Scafell Pike.

We all piled out and headed for the path in full waterproofs wasting as little time as possible – we had to beat the worst of the weather – and, in the rush, I forgot to put my soft-shell jacket, which I had left out to dry after Ben Nevis, in my pack.

The path was almost as busy as Ben Nevis, despite it being half past midnight and the headtorches were eerie. Our own torches were a pain. They were bright and lit the path up well except when it was raining because, like having your headlights on in fog, the light reflected straight back off the rain. And it was raining – a lot. We had a target of 4.5 hours and that would be tough in that weather.

I always start a walk slowly but usually get my energy back after 40 minutes or so, but the energy just would not come. After an hour, I was finished. It was not the weather (I’d been in worse, had good waterproofs and was still dry),  I’d refuelled with carbs and protein and I had plenty of water, not that I was losing much fluid in that weather. I think it was the time – we are supposed to be at our lowest point of the daily energy cycle in the early hours – and a reaction from the slog that was Ben Nevis, which we’d finished just 6 hours earlier.

Whatever the cause, I could not go on much longer, was at the back of the group and slowing them down. Jimbo insisted I could do it but I was running on empty.

We’d crossed a river (the yetis did their bit, as usual) and were slogging up a tough, track in the dark, constantly stopping to pass walkers coming down. Then we heard that groups were giving up, their guides advising that it was not safe. Jimbo left it to us – it was not yet dangerous and he knew we’d want to go on. But I didn’t. I did not want to give up and let everyone down but I really and honestly did not think I could finish and wanted someone else to make the decision to stop.

We went on, and the wind worsened, and all the time the rain was getting harder, and penetrating my hood and sleeves. Then the overtrousers gave up the ghost. All the time, I was expecting Jimbo to call us down. But he didn’t. Instead he pulled us all together and told us to get all our spare gear on for the last stretch. I did not have any spare gear – my soft-shell was in the bus – so Jimbo lent me his spare.

After an eternity of walking, we no longer saw any lights above us – the walkers ahead had apparently all given up, but we were still walking, and the weather was still worsening. Was this wise?

To my complete amazement, we found the terrain levelling off, and there were lights ahead of and above us, in a bunch. That was a team of walkers on the summit. They quickly came towards us and left us there alone – we’d made it. But how?

We did not hang around and headed straight down – there was no point staying as the wind was so strong we could barely stand. And then it really got bad.

Going up for hours on end is energy sapping, but going down is hard on the knees and it was was very unstable underfoot. The ground was loose gravel and shingle, interspersed with rocks and boulders, all sopping wet and unstable. I fell, again and again, on the treacherous ground, including once in the river crossing. I completely lost confidence in my ability, and my pace dropped still further. And I was by now soaked all the way to my skin, my boots were saturated (the yetis had given up completely – they had never leaked before – my knees were agony and I was knackered.

We got back after 5 hours and 25 minutes – well overdue – and I had slowed the team down. Yes we’d reached the top in appalling conditions and yes it appeared that only us and one other had made it up in that part of the early hours but we were worn out and miserable – and still had one mountain to go. And we now had little chance of making the time.

I had no idea how I’d made it to the top, but, looking back, I think the expectation that Jimbo, or the team as a whole, would call it off was the reason I got there. I was done. I knew I could not make it but I did not want to give up and let everyone down. I’d not feel so bad if the weather stopped us making it, so I carried on waiting for the call, but it never came. A bit of psychology from Jimbo? Probably.

I’d been tweeting on Ben Nevis but had no signal in the Lakes. So, sitting in the bus, soaked to the skin, while we dashed to the services on the M6 to dry off and warm up, I passed the time by catching up on the tweeting and texting. Just describing the experience was making me quite emotional and when my wife replied that I needed a hug, that was it. I was just glad that everyone else was asleep (apart from Andy of course who was driving) and did not see me sniffling.

That whole experience was absolutely horrendous – the worst conditions (weather and ground) that I’d walked in (and I’ve been out in some horrible conditions, all night and longer, in my Dartmoor Rescue days) or was I just inadequately prepared? Either way, that was the hardest thing I’d ever done and I felt shattered – mentally and physically – and we were heading for another mountain.

I just wanted to stop and go home.