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Friday 19 February 2010

The National 3 Peaks

I had a chat with the brothers and another good dude, Ken, last night. We've decided that along with Spike we are going to give the National 3 Peaks a shot. The hiking trail ascent (and descent) of the highest mountains in each of Scotland (Ben Nevis), England (Scafell Pike) and Wales (Snowdon) within a 24 hour period. Officially you are supposed to touch the sea to start and again at the end to complete the walk in its entirity.

Coincidentally I had another old chum (she's not old but I've known her a while if you know what I mean) over for dinner last night who has done all sorts of long distance strolls and she told me that the National 3 Peaks is easier in some respects than the Yorkshire 3 Peaks, mainly due to the fact that so long as you stretch after each descent you actually get the chance for a rest in between each mountain.

So the plan as we've loosely battered it out is that we will dip our toes in the water in Fort William (the official National 3 peaks route starts at the sea and finishes at the sea). We shall then travel the mariginal miles to Ben Nevis and get that under our belts first as this is the biggest at (1344m), for sentiment we do not want to spend the day yomping up hill and down dale along the hiking trail of each mountain knowing that the grand finale will be bigger then anything we have done throughout the day - not great for morale (nor legs for that matter). Naturally we'll then drive from here to Wasdale Head. We'll ascend Scafell Pike (978m) from here as this is the shortest ascent route rather than cutting out the car miles and hiking in from Boot (we can't afford the time). Whether we take the short steep or the long flat(er) route is yet to be decided however I think that we'll probably end up going the easier route up. From there we'll jump back in the A-Team van and fire down to Snowdon (1078m) where we'll meet up with our respective better halves and yomp the hiking trail up Snowdon. We'll then drag ourselves off the hillside and get back in the wagon to drive into the sea whereby we will touch the drink and complete the route, our mission and the National 3 Peaks.

Then back to a hotel in North Wales for tea and medals (as previously mentioned - nosh and pints).

We've decided to drive ourselves but we're gonna take a Merc Vito long wheelbase van so that we can lay mattresses out in the back and get some good shut eye in between the mountains. Save the cash for the spa hotel.

A great opportunity to tick one off and get some hill miles in for training for the Lakeland 3000's.

1 comments:

Londonbackpacker said...

Hi Rich

I couldn't fine a contact address for you, so posted to your comments.

By all means grab the wildcamping banner, although the link on it is to the government's petition website and the petition is long finished.

Geo

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