Three Peaks Challenge - Sheena Hendrie
By Sheena Hendrie
16 -18 September 2004
Some of you may be aware that I "volunteered" to do the 3 Peaks (International version) with 199 other volunteers from the railway industry (in teams of 4) by train during the above weekend. The event was the brainchild of the Operations Director of Network Rail and attracted industry wide support (Virgin, Network Rail, EWS, etc). The aim was to raise £80k plus in support of a charity called "The Railway Children" which supports street kids who turn up at railway stations worldwide.
My invitation came from my boss - who had never been up a hill in his life, to accompany himself, his wife, and our ex-boss. The first two are about my age, the latter is late 50's with dodgy knees and no hill experience. I was chief navigator, chief sherpa, prime kit supplier, etc. I deemed it politic to accept - but when I did it was meant to be a race so I reckoned I could "desert" my team in the interests of ensuring at least one of us did all three hills. It did not quite turn out like that.
The final plan (after numerous hair-brained false starts) was train from London at 1700 on Thursday, stop at Crewe (where we joined), go to Bangor, bus to Pen y Pas, do Snowdon starting around midnight via Pyg Track, return to Bangor, pick up train. Train to Ravenglass by about midday Friday, pick up the Ratty (Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway) to Dalegarth, walk to Brackenclose or take minibus to same point, ascend Scafell Pike, return by bus from Brackenclose to Ravenglass, rejoin train. Train overnight to Fort William, bus to youth hostel in Glen Nevis for 0600 Saturday, do the Beinn, return to bus and hence to train. Depart Fort Bill at 1230 Saturday to return south, with London arrival at about midnight on Saturday/Sunday.
This is how it went??
Thursday Night - Pen y Pass
The outfit engaged to make sure the event ran safely did a kit check of everyone on the train - compasses, whistles, torches, maps, waterproofs. Luckily they did not check competence or knowledge of which end of the compass needle to read for north?.. Team instructions were to keep together on pain of death/disqualification. Radios were issued, team and codenames issued (Team 33, Olympia), emergency shelters provided, instructions given that before anyone turned back they had to radio in for approval.
Forecast was for heavy rain and wind - for once the forecasters were right. The weather met us at Llanberis - wind shifting the coach sideways, horizontal rain etc with 100 mph gusts on summit of Snowdon. Hence the 3 Peaks Challenge became a 2.5 Peaks challenge - the MRT volunteers who supported the event sent us up the Miners Track in groups of 12 to half way (540m by my reckoning) and sent us down again. Just in time to get very wet, and then sit on a bus as the weather improved for 3 hours to get us back to Bangor to meet the train. Don't use the Miners track for a few weeks - 200 sets of feet trashed the mud!
Friday - Wasdale
The train trip to Ravenglass was pleasant - got a good view of places you don't see from the road. After the Ratty, some teams then walked over to Brackenclose - our team took the cautious approach by bus which was just as well in view of our subsequent rate of ascent. Our team were the slowest of all on Scafell Pike due to Cliff's knackered knees. 5 hours 30 minutes from Brackenclose to summit and back must break the slowest ever record. Cliff was last off the hill out of all participants with about 6 Wasdale MRT team volunteers shepherding him down.
There then followed the train journey north, after the better part of 200 people invaded the pub at Ravenglass for 30 minutes before the train departure time and drank it dry, to the pleasure of the landlord and disgruntlement of locals who had come in for a quiet pint.
Saturday - Glen Nevis
The Beinn was almost the point at which the 3 Peaks Race became a 1 Peak Perambulation. When we set off the organisers and Lochaber MRT were planning to turn us round about 300ft up the hill again due to high winds on the summit; however the weather improved and they changed the turnaround point to half way. Then the weather improved further and in the end all teams made the summit in varying numbers, with some getting the entire team on top and others only one or two. So I have some summit photos of three of us in more mist. We celebrated with malt and kirsch - three team members in the Sheffield Uni team whom we knew were Swiss so we had a dual nationality celebration. (I recommend Sainsbury's Islay malt in such circumstances.)
The train we used in Scotland was sufficiently unusual that on the return journey south word was out and we attracted anoraks with cameras at Crianlarich - 2 EWS locos and Virgin carriages are apparently a unique combination. There are some sad people in the world!
My ex-boss wants a photo of me to stick pins in - for strolling up Scafell Pike with my hands in my pockets!
Ironically the closest we got to complete failure was changing locos at Cambuslang on the way north. At 1230 at night I could hear the crew uncoupling the locos saying in broad Glaswegian - its solid (tap ,tap bang), its solid, (tap, tap bang), its f------ solid, (more taps and bangs). We lost 30 minutes because they were struggling to uncouple the loco, and that then meant that time was very tight on the Beinn since there was a drop dead time to get back to the bottom to catch the train.
£100,003+ was raised in total with our team achieving over £6k thanks to the company matching individual sponsorships. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Thanks in particular are due to the train crew who had volunteered from office jobs to spend 3 days on a train feeding 200 people, plus my ex-boss who spent the Saturday morning unblocking toilets on the train while the rest of us did the hill.
Thanks to KMC members who offered sponsorship - I'm still debt collecting so all contributions would be welcome.
