Ben Nevis – The Three Peak Challenge

Daisy Turnip writes.....

We came, we saw, we conquered and I hobbled for a week in absolute agony!

But it was simply awesome and worth every single ache and every single pain.

When we finally got to the top of Ben Nevis – we went up the tourist route – by God, they should have just tarmac’d it, the route is so easy to follow, there was several foot of snow at the top and visibility was incredibly poor. So we sat there and ate our sandwiches, had a cup of coffee and then suddenly the cloud lifted and the sun appeared and there before us was this AMAZING view of the surrounding mountains. Everyone just stood speechless and this was quickly followed with many gasps and ‘awwww, look at that’.

Going back down was the killer. We left the tourist route and took a more direct route. A more direct route means it’s more of a vertical challenge which means it hurts more. They should put a knee pain indicator on all the OS maps! It would seriously mean we picked our routes with greater concentration.

We were nearly at the foot of Ben Nevis, when we came across a team of walkers going up. We said hello and asked if they were ‘going all the way?’ they informed us they’d just started the 3 peak challenge. I told them, that once at the bottom, I will have just finished mine – they looked surprised until I added that instead of the usual 24 hour challenge, it had only taken me 6 years to complete!! I’m chuffed anyway. Being the trophy hunter that I am, I can now tick off my list, each of the highest peaks for England, Scotland and Wales.