On Friday 20th June 2008 - Jane, Linda, Polly, Rosemary & Steph set out to climb the 3 highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales in under 24 hours. This blog is the diary of our adventure!
Ben Nevis
Delayed flights meant we had to speed to the foot of Ben Nevis. We stopped for some supper at the Ben Nevis Inn - a great, place to begin from. A speedy turnaround and we were off at 18:10 - the magic hour! The Henley Ladies were joined in the bus by three "honorary ladies" Rowan, Francis and Ben - they were all great and turned out to be totally unshockable.....however hard we tried!
1/3 of the way up Ben Nevis we had to get the waterproofs on - it gave us a minute to admire the view of Halfway Lake - which incidentally isn't half way! During the walk - we were chatting about what we wish people had told us about this mountain - this is what we decided.
1. The beginning of the walk is like a Giant's staircase that the Giant's kids have left their Giant toys all over!
2. The Middle half is a long and winding road covered in sharp rocks
3. There is not a single living organism at the top - just snow, rocks and Henley Ladies!
Towards the top of Ben Nevis we walked through the snow field - very strange sensation to go through the snow and then back onto the rocks to the summit. It was late 21:00 and it was still pretty light - we used the head torches for the last hour on the devent.
Onto the summit - it was COLD but the sense of achievement was HUGE.
Scarfel Pike 
Top Ben Nevis
The Motorway out of Scotland was closed! Ahhhh - we had to do a detour around Glasgow which lost us a valuable hour. We had a quick pit stop for coffee and drove through the night in our trusty bus reaching Scarfell Pike at about 05.00 Eating breakfast on the way up.
The route we took goes up along side the river, over the river on the rocks and then up through the crag (below) - Climbing up through the crag was terrifying, exhilarating and in the end rewarding! It involved grabbing a rock, pulling yourself up and hoping for the best - thank got for the guides and Rowan!
The top of Scarfell Pike is a massive boulder field that you pick your way through and over to get to the Summit. The lead group were gone by the time we got to the top - they were speedy speedy! The white in the photo is a cloud which we were way above.
While we were taking this photo - a fellow walker came over to us "Would you be offended if I took all my clothes of for a photo?" It's for charity - he had to have a naked photo taken at the summit of all the 3-peaks!
Snowdon
We left Scarfell Pike and raced towards Snowdon in the pouring rain.... the weather just got worse and worse. Some slept better than others on the journey!
Arriving at the base of Snowdon, waterproofs on for the start, we were drenched through to the skin in about 10 minutes.
ScarfelPolly shot ahead to make sure one of the team made it in 24 hours - Jane, Linda and Steph were behind but still in with a shout!
In
the end - the weather came in so hard, winds at the top got to 90 miles
an hour and visibility was 0. Polly had to hang for dear life on the
summit.
Steph, Rosemary, Jane and Linda were forced down. It just wasn't safe for us to go on - Jane was lifted off her feet by the wind when a gust got hold of her ruck sack. We are very sad we didn't all make it up the last peak but Polly did it for the Henley Ladies and showed some of those men how it should be done!! We've all agreed we will come back and do Snowdon another day - so it won't be in 24-hours but we will all have been to the top of the 3 highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales together.
It's been a fantastic challenge - we've laughed & laughed - walked miles & miles, made new friends and added 2 dogs to the team while we've been training!! We will continue with our early morning weekend walks because they are fun - if you want to join us - Starbucks Henley, Saturday morning!
Thank you to all our fabulous sponsors. As a group - we've raised more than £25,000 for the CBC - wow!
Jane, Linda, Polly, Rosemary & Steph
