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I'm doing the 24hr/3 peaks challenge from 9am saturday morning. We are just doing it for kicks but everyone assumes we must be doing it for charity and so work colleagues and friends are randomly donating money to a couple of charities i favour - oxfam and wateraid.

Anyone feeling flush or charitable then feel free to donate some money to either of these charities how ever you wish on the slim excuse of barely knowing someone doing something midly extreme.....

this maybe my last post ever as a heart attack seems likely given my endurance fitness levels being non existent.

Good luck!!

& bye

I have just driven this for friends last weekend. Let me know if you want hints tips times etc. Btw they recommend starting ben Nevis at 5 pm so perhaps relook at your timings and stuff

What was your route/rough times?  Out of interest please.

No probs

5pm  - start at Ben Nevis (glen nevis visitor cntre car park)
10pm - finished walk - packed up and set off to Scafell Pike
3/4am - arrive at Scafell and try and start walk by 4am -

(this is one of your main issues - one of the walks has to be in the dark, and it is recommended that this is the one - dont forget your head torches!!!!!!!)

8am -  set off up snowdown

12noon - be ready to take a flyer at snowdon - you are very unlikely to get car parking at Pen y Pass and therefore have to poark and ride - therefore must allocate another 30 mins into your journey

FInsih 3-4 - wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii - booze

We are leaving stoke at 9am so that ties in with your timings a bit better.

What was the general level of fitness of your group? did they struggle?

parking at pen y pass is no issue as long as you have a dedicated driver which presumably you have or this whole things gonna be a nightmare. they drop you off at the carpark and then go and park up a mile or so down the hill. by the time everyone's finishing there should be parking spaces from the people who set off in the morning

some drivers llike to walk snowdon with the team - although i accept thats kinda presumptuous on my behalf

you need to be fit  - but not ironman!

preparation is as much the key

ah, in that case you're right about the parking issue. no way you're getting in the carpark at midday

if you're staying in betwys y coed after snowdon you could do worse than book a table here for your dinner

http://www.tygwynhotel.co.uk

food is awesome and portions are abs huge, perfect for recovering from climbing mountains

how did this go?

Went well, its pretty tough but it was mainly lack of sleep that was the problem. Had an exciting race against time at the end because of traffic in wales so we had to jog down most of snowdon but we made it with 20 mins to spare.

If anyone does it beware the first hour going up ben nevis, thats the hardest bit of the lot and there were a lot of concerned faces thinking there's no way i can do 3 of these if its all like this.

This is coming down Ben Nevis in the evening -

(http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5342/bennevis.jpg) (http://img72.imageshack.us/i/bennevis.jpg/)

How did you navigate? (While on foot) GPS? Map & compass? All three? Did you have any problems finding your way on the mountains or were there big well worn obvious trails?. How did you know where to start and finish?

You should take a compass/maps/gps, we did but never needed them as there were always other people in sight on the paths and mostly the paths are obvious or the walkers have made piles of stones to guide you - only Scaffel pike is tricky enough for you to get lost imo (at the top it looks like a different planet). The weather was pretty good for us so not sure how cocky i'd be if it was rough weather.

We had sat nav to get us to the base of the mountains.

I'm not being flippant, but I should imagine the base of the mountain covers quite a large area.

yeah but you want to find your car, not just the bottom of the mountain

I was talking to a friend last night about doing this sometime next year hence the bump. biggest challenge in the whole thing seems to be finding a driver

yes true, there are routes from car parks or off the road, you get these as postcodes or locations beforehand from websites and then have them in your sat nav.

Strangely we had several volunteers to drive our bus. Its no picnic for the driver though there were some frayed tempers along the way but he was a mate so it worked out, if you can get 2 to drive and share the driving its advisable. The other guys hired someone to drive and he was totally professional and just got on with it. Drivers get shorter sleep oppotunites than the walkers.

how much did they pay to hire a driver?

Not sure exactly but i heard £15 a head mentioned and there were 8 or 9 on their bus, might have included a tip.

cool. that's way less than I was expecting

We had a connection who sorted out the buses for us for nothing so i don't know if the driver was on the cheap as well.

How did you decide which routes to take?

The only major choice was Scaffel, you can take a longer but easier route if your driver will drive round to another pick up point after dropping you off, you save driving time then so it saves you having to do the harder route to avoid losing time. This was the point of the falling out with the driver as he wanted to sleep!! We ended up going up the hardest route and coming down the same way.

Tom

The 3 peaks web site gives you the official starting points for each leg, and that pretty much dictates your route. As ace said, scafell is the only 1 where you could get lost. Also most people do this in summer months, and due to the popularity you are rarely on your own.

Also don't underestimate the drivers task in this, if he is support too. I drove for 3 friends in the summer and its pretty tough too. If you start BN at 4, the nighttime drive to scafell is long and tough, esp as you near the lakes.

And sleeping in a car is always cold and uncomfortable even in the summer, and I was in a decent size 4x4 too!
Still all very rewarding.

Top tip is leave loads of time for traffic/ parking at snowdon. If u have a driver who isn't walking he can drop you at the start then drive to remote parking! Paying for a driver is worth it's weight in gold at this point!

Also don't fk around at bottoms of mountains! If you have lost time on roads you regret it as you get to snowdon if time is pressing

Any more pics from the top of the mountains?

the actual peaks looked like this  -

(http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/1733/scafellpeak.jpg) (http://img219.imageshack.us/i/scafellpeak.jpg/)

on the way up nevis -

(http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4738/nevishalfway.jpg) (http://img214.imageshack.us/i/nevishalfway.jpg/)

Loving the photos

Snowdon -

(http://img534.imageshack.us/img534/3441/snowdon.jpg) (http://img534.imageshack.us/i/snowdon.jpg/)

The bottom of scaffel, we went up in the dark and didn't take any photos on the way down because we were shagged, you can tell by the state of us here. I like the photo though. -

(http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/2176/bottomofscaffell.jpg) (http://img413.imageshack.us/i/bottomofscaffell.jpg/)