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02:00 start at Aylsham, Norfolk – what a grim start to the challenge!!
Picking up Tom on the way to Manchester, we safely get the whole team together and arrive in Fort William, well ahead of schedule at 14:00.
Seemingly perfect weather at the bottom, but some sinister clouds rolling around and a dark forecast from the guys in the mountain station…
16:30 – TEAMBIS embarks on the challenge, screaming wind and horizontal rain, which just simply got worse on the way up! They told us the reported weather was 70mph winds and -5 wind chill at the summit – I’m genuinely not one for exaggerating but it felt twice that wind speed and bloody hell was it cold! I’m 15 stone, fairly steady on my feet and twice I was blown clean to the floor by the gusting wind. We hauled ourselves to the top of the Ben, barely stopping for the customary photograph and slap on the back, before the treacherous walk down the slippery stone path with no reprieve from the harsh weather.
It’s quite an eye-opener – the raw power of nature, when we set off over the bridge at the youth hostel, it was little more than quiet stream, on the way down – just 5 hours later however, this turned into a raging angry torrent. All the team were soaked, tired and hungry – but with the clock ticking, it was out of our soaked clothing and into the bus for food on the move, as support man Tom ‘safe wheels’ Jaggard got us underway to the foot of Scafell Pike in England.
03:00 – Pitch black, cold, windy and pouring with rain – much to our disappointment we had seemingly brought the atrocious weather with us from Scotland to England. It was time to leave the relative warm comfort of the BIS BUS and get back into our (still) wet gear. We had decided to attack Scafell from the Seathwaite approach, hoping the longer walk would pay us off, by reducing the driving time round the notorious country roads to the more popular Wasdale route. We were ahead of schedule and in fine spirits once underway under headlights. 60 minutes into the trek and disaster strikes the team, Jim Acton slips on a rock and badly twists his ankle. We quickly establish that Jim is going no further up and in fact we have a hard decision to make. With Jim incapable of putting any weight at all on his injured ankle, we cannot risk just one person escorting him down, which would have allowed the other two to press on for the summit. It was still pitch black, cold, pouring with rain and the route back down included crossing waterfalls, styles and lots of slippery rocks and we had no choice but to get him down as the team. Our plan was to get Jim down as fast as possible, then double back and try again – we hadn’t figured it taking almost three hours to man handle Jim slowly and painfully down the mountain. This gave us an even bigger decision – all teams had to commence Snowdon in Wales, by 15:00 as part of the challenge rules. By now it was 07:00 – at best we would do Scafell in 4 hours and then the 5 hour drive down to Wales, would mean we would not be able to climb Snowdon. As we had already spent so much time on Scafell, we reluctantly decided to head for Wales.
12:00 – Tom joins in the walking team for the last summit – we head off somewhat rejuvenated, despite our disappointment at Scafell, on the Pyg track to mount Snowdon. We made the summit in good time and marvelled at the new café being built at the top of the train station, just off the summit! This was the first time we had enjoyed good weather and the views from the top made all the pains of the three peaks challenge completely worthwhile – breathtaking. We took the miners track down and were safely down the mountain just before 16:30.
The ‘forth peak’ began with steak and plenty of refreshments from the bar – the banter went well into the night (most of it targeted at Jim). We had a fantastic time on the challenge and I would heartily recommend it to anyone who is prepared to put in some training, have the right gear and seek as much information as possible to pre-arm yourselves – it’s not called a challenge for nothing! It really does hurt!
Our team has raised £1,305 for four charities and it’s been a fantastic team building exercise and personal achievement. Collectively - the 20 teams who entered the ntl:Telewest business challenge raised an awesome £35,000.
We would like to thank everybody who sponsored and supported us – our chosen charities have already expressed their gratitude for the undertaking and support of this event. Thanks again to you all!
TEAM BIS – Simon McKinna, Nick Lowe, Robbie Evason, Tom Jaggard and Jim ‘the pink’ Acton
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