Last weekend, I attempted the 3 Peaks Challenge* – ascending Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon, the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales respectively. During the trip, and while pushing myself to get up (and down), I learned some things about myself, and the world. These I’ll be sharing here in a series of blogs over the course of this week.
Day Two reprise: climbing Snowdon. As we started off up Snowdon, the darkness fell and the rain continued, so we each had to take responsibility for maintaining connection with the person behind us – it was no longer viable for Pere to keep checking to the back of the group.
As we crossed over to the exposed side of the slope, we felt the full force of the wind for the first time – gusts that felt like gale force, and horizontal rain beating our faces. With the poor visibility, we had to keep stopping while Pere scouted ahead to make sure we were on the right track – the Pyg Track’s quite clear in decent visibility, but there are points where it climbs up rocky areas and in the dark and wind and rain it’s easy to go off track.
It quickly became clear that I was falling a bit behind – not miles behind, but enough to be noticeable. So very early on Pere called me up to the middle of the group, so that we wouldn’t get too strung out. A big lesson there, Lesson Nine: You’re only as strong as your weakest link, so look after it. If I’d faltered, the whole team would have had to turn back, as only Pere really knew the way up or down in the dark, so it was in everyone’s interests to keep me going – which they did very well, especially Pere and Kate (who had decided to join us for this last mountain, having completed the challenge in May). Up until that message from the Gods, anyway!
I learned something for myself too, a sort of Lesson 9a: it’s OK to be the weakest link, so long as you don’t actually break!
And there’s one final lesson to come, possibly the biggest of the lot …
* Lite version, over 2 days.
