The National 3 Peaks Challenge

Well well well.

Absolutely get this on your list of things I should defo do in my life. What a 48 hours this was.

Firstly, you need to get this booked either with a proper tour operator, we went with Chris from Active Mountaineering, what a guy and had us all pissing ourselves all weekend, a proper laugh but serious and on the ball to make sure we completed the challenge. 

Check out his website: https://activemountaineering.co.uk/

Or you’ll need to share driving between your group, there’s over 450 miles of driving to cover, whilst also trying to get some rest in between the hikes, IMO I’d take that hassle out of it and let someone arrange that for me. Having said that though, although Chris’s is one of the best value tours out there, you’re still looking at the best part of £450 – £500 all in. As you need to book accommodation for the Friday night around Fort William, before the challenge starts on the Saturday morning. (I’m sure there are midweek excursions too, but most run on a weekend).

Day 1

The first day is meet and pickup day, you can make your own way to Fort William, but luckily as Chris is a fellow scouser, he starts his pickups in Liverpool.

Then later than evening you settle in Fort William, make sure to get all of your supplies for over the weekend, plenty of carbs and energy and fluids.

Day 2

The challenge begins at the base of Ben Nevis at the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel. As you’ve probably guessed the weather was great, we were up and down within 5 hours and then on our way to Scafell Pike.

Not too challenging, but we needed to go at a steady pace to make sure we hit each peak within the timescales to complete the challenge.

Straight forward hike IMO, very enjoyable and amazing views looking back down to the valley, the zig zags on the route were really cool and made for decent, but quick stop off points here and there for a water refill.

With a few driver stop offs in between, we then landed at Wasdale Car Park to start Scafell Pike.

This felt like a top effort from everyone, up and down in not much more than 3 hours, with an amazing sunset just as were were hitting the summit, absolutely perfect evening. Only had to use our headtorches for the last 15/20 minutes.

Day 3

Back in the van from Scafell, it was time to try and get some sleep, I failed miserably as I’m a shite sleeper anyway, so trying to get my head down while I was pumped up, sweaty as and in a van, wasn’t going to happen.

We arrived at the Pen-y-Pass car park to start the final leg on the challenge, Snowdon.

Headtorches on, you start the first hour or so in the dark which was a pretty cool experience, as the sun started to rise, again we got unbelievable clear views of Snowdonia National Park.

We went up the Pyg Track, it was fairly busy for this time of the morning and once we got our summit pictures, rested for a few minutes, we were on our way back down but this time on the Miners Track which leads straight back to Pen-y-Pass.

Chris said the reason he chooses the miners on the way back is because a large stretch towards the end is flat, so this helps if time is really tight and some hikers need a rocket up their arse to complete the challenge within the 24 hours.

We smashed it in 23 hours and 10 minutes!

I was also able to tick off another Wainwright on this trip ;) Scafell Pike was my number 26.

This was the first time I had done Ben Nevis, the second time I had done Scafell Pike, the previous time about 15+ years before when a teenager. And I think my 5/6th time doing Snowdon, but the first time in many years with an actual f**king view. Buzzing!!

What was also great about this challenge, was that I had started to tick off some countries on my World Country High Point list, 3 country high points summitted in 24 hours, love all that.

Totals

1. Ascent – 2875m
2. Distance – 34km
3. Cost – £470ish
4. Time – 23 Hours & 11 Minutes
5. Country High Points – 3