Job done.

Gurinder smashed Snowdon in 3h 5m, getting done at 0535, completing the challenge in 23h 34m, and I was last down just 3m over the clock, although taking only 3h 42m.

Scafell Pike done in 3hr 10m

Now an hour ahead of schedule thanks to mammoth effort by James, Gareth and Gurinder!

James said 'Scafell is just a big pile of stones that has no right to be there'

At this rate we'll be late

Been following this truck for half hour, satnav says we've already lost 15min thanks to to going 35-40mph on this 50mph road :-(

4h 30m exactly for Ben Nevis

The waterfall

About 900m up

Well above some clouds

Summit 0845!

Not bad after starting at 0610.

Go on sponsor a few more quid :-)

Already seems high

Start

Dave takes his first shot of Ben

Cheers, to my Mum and the 3 Peaks

Upto £2925 now, amazing. Thanks to you all :-)

Scotland is beautiful

Breathtaking scenery. Loch Lomond

Seeing a lot of this today

Windscreen wipers, and the back of my brothers head

All packed

Just soaking my feet before bed. Long drive upto Scotland tomorrow.

Schedule.

So you all have some idea what we're doing, here's the final schedule.

Tuesday 31st May
6am Start climbing Ben Nevis
11am Finish Ben Nevis and start driving to Scafell Pike
5pm Start Scafell Pike
10pm Finish Scafell Pike and start driving to Snowdon

Wednesday 1st June
2am Start Snowdon
6am Finish Snowdon

At least that's the plan!

Posts now appearing on Facebook (maybe)

I've been trying to import the blog onto my Facebook page for the last few days, and finally today it was successful instead of telling me there was an error. So in theory this post will now appear on Facebook automagically, as will all our photo updates when we're doing the walk.

Giving things a little scale

Thanks Eric for hashing this up for me. I was looking at the heights and found out that the Shard of Glass, currently being built at London Bridge and set to be Europe's tallest building when it's finished this time next year is approximately only one quarter of the height of Ben Nevis. If you're not familiar with the Shard, we've also included the London Eye too.

Getting all 3D

OS Maps are great, but there's nothing like Google Earth to see actual terrain. Here's the three mountains, with approximate routes sketched over, they really show what we're dealing with.

Ben Nevis



Scafell Pike



Snowdon

Our location during the challenge.

I've enabled Google Latitude on my phone and added the app to the blog at the top right of the page. Each time you refresh the page it will show my latest location according to my phone, for the time being it's going to be pretty boring, showing me at work, or home, but during the challenge it will show my phone's latest location when it has reception.

I've just checked 3's coverage across the peaks. Ben Nevis is pretty sketchy almost all the way up, Scafell Pike is apparently a deadzone and Snowdon actually seems to have reasonable coverage most of the way up. So even if you can't see exactly where we are, you'll know roughly.

Test walk in the dark

So, without our head torches this is what we were looking at last night, having made sure we were out before the moon came up. Besides James running off and hiding, poised to jump out and scare us only to be spotted before he had the chance and a hide-n-seek in the dark contest that nobody had the energy for we learnt a lot last night. It was around 10 degrees C but while we were moving we only needed a base layer to stay warm enough.

Walking and staying on route by head torch was more challenging than I'd anticipated as the beam is either more or less at your feet to avoid tripping on tree roots or rocks, or pointing ahead lighting the way, but not both. Keith turned up with some crazy new technology LED torch that fit in the palm of the hand and was brighter than anything we had, but sounded a bit expensive. I definitely going to have to get some sort of additional lighting though.

T-Minus 13 days

Here are the routes we're taking.

3 weeks today!

Yes, it's just three weeks until we do the 3 Peaks Challenge. It's been a pretty short few months leading up to it. We got the team together again on Sunday for a final check that we're all in good shape, here's stats from the walk that day:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=200829662990576341226.0004a2c92cf5615d765e2

Total Distance: 9.59 km (6.0 mi)
Total Time: 2:35:47
Moving Time: 1:44:16
Average Speed: 3.69 km/h (2.3 mi/h)
Average Moving Speed: 5.52 km/h (3.4 mi/h)
Max Speed: 16.98 km/h (10.6 mi/h)
Min Elevation: 197 m (646 ft)
Max Elevation: 293 m (963 ft)
Elevation Gain: 667 m (2188 ft)
Recorded: Sun May 08 11:04:11 GMT+01:00 2011

That approximately half the height and half the time of Ben Nevis, and about 2/3 of the walking distance, if we can keep that up we should be on target. We're now looking to do a night walk in the next week or so to get a feel for what we have in store at Scafell Pike (which we are doing between 11pm and 4am).

Thanks to every one that has donated, we may not have achieved the £5,000 we'd hoped for, but we're not too far off half of that; £2,200 at time of writing which is still amazing :-)

55ft shy of Ben Nevis

Over the long Royal Wedding weekend I returned to the North Downs, I stuck to the steepest hills I could find and set myself an hour time limit. An hour later and I'd scaled the equivalent of Ben Nevis (all but 55 feet) *(bad maths here, a small mix up between ft and m, so I covered 1/3 of Ben Nevis, not almost the whole thing!) but in only half the distance.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=200829662990576341226.0004a26f8caa4eab8b410

Total Distance: 4.43km
Total Time: 1h 00m 50s
Moving Time: 50m 59s
Total Elevation: 393m (1289ft)

We've got another team walk on Sunday, the final group meet before the event, then just 2 more weeks of training. It's getting very close now!

Test Day - equivalent to Snowdon

We couldn't have asked for warmer/sunnier weather, although I think we'd all have been glad of a breeze. Yesterday we met on the North Downs, having located some rather steep footpaths, and set out to test our fitness. Some 9 kilometres later, having climbed and descended about 1080m we said enough was enough. We'd done the equivalent of going up then down Snowdon, but It was a real wake up call as to how fit we're going to need to be, and how much more training we have to do. Slightly scary as it's only a little over a month until the event.

Less than 2 months to go.

I've had a forced break from training for a few weeks while I've been ill, but I'm back in good health now and with just under 2 months until the event I'm thinking I've really got to push things up a gear. I've heard varying reports from the other team members on their training. Gurinder's running 10km 3 times a week! Several are in and out of the gym all week running, cross training and so on, and Lindsay has been walking some extreme distances with his back pack full of bricks!

Nearly £500 raised since the last update.

Besides learning just how fit (or unfit) we are, something else we've learnt is that a message asking for donations on Facebook, in an email signature, and even in a paper that thousands of people will read generally doesn't attract any donations. Personally I was really surprised that in the week following us being featured in our local paper that not a single donation was made, it's little wonder that charities have people out on the streets seemingly hassling people for their money, it seems to be the only way to get any support.

It's really made me appreciate what a difficult job these charities have trying to find the funds they need to keep going, and whilst we're two and a half months off the event I don't know if we'll reach our original target. The way I'm looking at it is that we'll be able to say we tried and the hospice will have received something towards their running costs.

Incidentally, at time of typing we're at £1699.

Featured in Greenwich Time newspaper

Thanks to 'GT' for giving us nearly a whole page for our fund raising event:



Here's the article:



I would like to clarify it's all thanks to James that we're doing this as it was totally his idea, and next to me in the photo is my brother Keith, although I won't deny he's a pal too.

If you've been directed here because of the above article the chances are you know someone that has benefited from the Hospice's amazing service so please do sponsor us something if you can, even if it's just a £1 or two. Many many thanks to you.

Every time some one donates...

...Just Giving send me an email. And every time I see one's arrived it makes me smile as it means some body has been touched by the cause.

Thanks to everyone that has donated, it really is appreciated!

Update

We're up to £1,235, just £15 off 25%, it's amazing that we're raised so much already and I have to thank James for the majority of this, his fund raising skills are second to none.

In an attempt to get the word out a little further I checked with my boss if it would be okay to add our Just Giving URL to my email signature and the next thing I know we're featured on the company website, which is great, so more thanks due there!

Finally the Hospice's local paper, Greenwich Time have said they'll feature us in a future edition, I'm just hoping this coverage draws in a few more donations.

Full team photo

Pre-challenge accommodation booked.

Had a bit of a whip round this morning and have now booked the Youth Hostel at the foot of Ben Nevis for the 7 challengees. Our support team (that's our 2 drivers will be staying nearby in more luxurious accommodation, probably featuring their own private room and bathroom). It seems like every day we inch closer to being ready :-)

£925 raised so far!

This is just amazing. We've still got nearly 4 months until the challenge and we're nearly at the 20% mark. Let's try to make it upto £1,000 today. That's going to feel like a real landmark.

First Aid - check.

So I successfully completed the First Aid course yesterday. During the introductions in the morning we found out why each of us were there and it was great that the instructor took an interest in our challenge and recommended what First Aid kit to get:



(so I ordered it this morning) and that we could add some glucose tablets, a couple of rehydration packs to it and perhaps a larger roll of duct tape and it should then cover us pretty well for most eventualities we may experience whilst up the side of a mountain. All in all a good day, but hopefully I don't get to practise anything I learnt!

Road to Ben Nevis

If you're in any doubt about what we're attempting. Let me put it to you this way. First we're going to climb up that mountain, then when we're done with that one, we're going to drive to another country and climb another, then onto another country and climb one more. That's got to be worth £5 of your hard earned money?

If this challenge were a film...

...then Ian's words of encouragement on the Just Giving site would be it's tag line:

3 mountains in 3 countries in 24 hours... is that even possible?

£500 - 10% of the way there!

Thanks to everyone that's donated so far, including the anonymous donation that brought us up to the £500 mark. It means so much to us to be receiving all this support.

It's interesting to hear from quite a few people that have done this challenge in the past with their tips and to have discovered that there are others doing it later this year that we may be able to help out with too.

10 days into the fund raising and 10% of the money raised already. There's plenty more planning and training to do yet and the countdown stands at 123 days remaining.

Red Cross First Aid training.

I know if my Mum had been alive she'd have told us we're mad attempting this challenge, I also know she'd have been able to sleep a little easier if I was First Aid trained for it. With that in mind I've booked myself onto 'Save a life adult' stage 1 and 2 with the Red Cross this coming Monday.

The course covers

• Aims of first aid, including legalities
• Recognition and treatment of a casualty:
• Assessing an unconscious and conscious casualty for life threatening conditions – (Primary – DR.ABC & secondary surveys, recovery position)
• Basic life support including CPR
• Choking
• Blood loss - severe blood loss and dressings
• Shock
• Burns and scalds
• Fractures and sprains
• Serious medical conditions including: heart attack*, anaphylactic shock*, diabetes, seizures, stroke (brain attack), head injuries and asthma (*Including the administration of medication as appropriate)
• Minor Illness: customer’s question bank. Specific questions raised by course attendees

£84 and a day's holiday well spent, all the more so if I don't need to use any of it while we're doing the challenge!

£245 raised so far.

Just a quick post to thank everyone that's donated so far. It's great to see it all starting to happen :-)

Timing the trip.

The general plan is to allow the following:

5 hours for Ben Nevis

6 hours driving to Scafell Pike

5 hours for Scafell Pike

4 hours driving to Snowden

4 hours for Snowden

This apparently allows just enough time to stick to speed limits and for everyone in reasonable shape to complete the climbs. However we time it we'll be walking at night for certain parts of it so I've used a useful little tool http://photoephemeris.com/ to calculate sunrise and sunset times for the 3 locations (give or take a few minutes)

Ben Nevis: 04:38 - 21:57

Scafell Pike: 04:46 - 21:34

Snowden: 04:57 - 21:28

Will have to check with the team but I think my preference will be to do Ben Nevis in the evening so we finish in twilight and can drive through the night (6 hours sleep in the minibus) to Scafell Pike, starting there a little before sunrise. Should be able to get some nice sunset and sunrise shots too.

Meet the team.

Thanks to Facebook albums I've cobbled together this 'group' photo as we've not got the team together yet.

Raising money in memory of my Mum

In June 2009 my Mum passed away after a two year fight with cancer. She ended her days in Greenwich & Bexley Cottage Hospice not far from my parent's home. It is a lovely place that imparts a feeling of serenity on patients, their visitors and the staff. While we were there not only did the staff do everything they could for my Mum but they looked after our family as well, providing advice, support and even camp beds if we needed to sleep.

While we were there we often chatted with the staff and they all seemed to have a similar story; they'd lost a loved one and wanted to go to work there (whether paid or voluntarily) to do there little bit to make the same difference to others that the hospice and staff had made for them. They aren't particularly well paid, but they are all passionate about the care they provide.

The Hospice is entirely funded by charitable donations and it costs approx £16,500 a day to keep it running. Our family went away with an open ended invitation to come back to stroll the gardens, talk to the nurses, or receive counselling any time we want, and a debt of gratitude we can never repay.

Over Christmas my dear friend James suggested we organise this event to raise money for the hospice in memory of my Mum and our team of climbers/trekkers is now 5 strong.

The challenge is to climb Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowden, the three highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales in 24 hours, climbing a total of nearly 10,000 feet, covering 27 miles on foot and around 500 miles on the road. The plan is to do it on 31st May 2011.