The following account is of a Three Peak Challenge written by Dave B.

I was approached in the beginning of last year by Nick Collison who was interested in attempting to climb the highest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales in a 24 hour period. This is an annual event, usually in June (making use of maximum daylight), starting at the foot of Ben Nevis near Fort William in Scotland, climbing 4,406 feet to the top (and of course hopefully back down), driving to the Lake District and climbing 3,206 feet up and down Scafell Pike, then a final drive to North Wales, 3,206 feet to the summit of Snowdon and back down. All in 24 Hours. Was I interested? Of course I bloody well was.

Nick had enlisted the services of a driver who would not be doing any walking, a special thanks to Andy Hunt, and had arranged accommodation in Fort William for the night before the walk and in Snowdon for the big celebration at the end, hopefully. The next few months saw people on walking machines down the Gym, late night Coders, jogging down bus routes and generally the dozen or so willing volunteers pushing their bodies like never before. As the big day of departure loomed near, a few less hardy mortals bottled out siting injury and lame duck excuses (we know your wife wouldn’t let you out to play Billy) as like finely tuned athletes we departed for Fort William, our Olympic Village for the night. After nine hours travelling we arrived at our rather pleasant Bunk House on the shores of Loch Lhinhe, champing at the bit and desperate for a night on the beer followed by haggis and chips. The next morning nursing sore heads, it was time to get all our kit together and all the rations we would need for the next two days. Only one thing for it, Safeway's for a fry up and supplies. The rest of the day was spent at a rather sedate pace the only exception a walk up Glen Nevis to Steall Waterfall, which is stunning. The original plan had been to set off from the foot of Ben Nevis at 6 O'clock that evening but a decision was taken to bring the start time forward to 4 O'clock. When Zero hour arrived, seven postmen plus a friend of Nicks set off up the pony track for the summit of Britain's highest peak. It was thankfully quite a pleasant afternoon as we made exceptional progress up the path past the halfway point at Lochan Meall An Suide, and crossed Red burn for the final two thousand feet up the Zigzags. Once across Red burn the cloud clagged in a bit as a fine mist forced us to put waterproofs on. The last two hundred feet saw us crossing a few snowfields even in June and after two hours we made the summit, A great effort. There was only time for a few snaps and hellos as I recognised one or two walkers in other groups before we had to start the descent. We passed literally hundreds of people who all had the same goal and it has to be said it was quite obvious the way some people huffed and puffed their way up it was going to be a hard weekend. The descent as always was hard on the knees as the group, retracing their steps, strung out along the route. When we arrived back at the van, Andy was astonished, the whole route to the top and down had taken everybody less than four and a half hours, we had counted on six. Gear was piled in the minibus along with slowly steaming bodies as we left the Ben had headed south to Scafell Pike in The Lake District, the lowest of the three peaks and many assumed the easiest.