Mark & Rob's Fundraising Mountain Climb 2008 Blog


Sunday 1st June - The Big Off

After checking my kit for about the 8th time I only managed the 3-4 hours sleep before Sparky arrived at 5am as planned, to leave at 5:30.
We packed the van, said our farewells and started the long journey up to bonnie Scotland driving in 2 hour legs.
Mark started and got us the other side of Brom (via a couple of pidgeons), I got us up to the Lakes, Mark got us into Scotland and past Glasgow, before I finished the journey all the way around the massive and precarious Loch Lomond, and through the highlands (not just a clever name by the way).
The journey took about 9 hours including stops, but we were 'tent up' at the foot of Ben and only 14:00hrs.
Did a bit of recon to work out where we were due to start and then headed into town to check out the local ..... errm .... town.
Much to our surprise they had a bar .... a couple actually !!
I was a little bit like torture not being able to sink a few pints after the long drive, especially as we had so much time to kill and the sun was out.
We had the sneaky one all the same, grabbed a nice fish & chips and met the local loon (no shirt on wandering the streets aimlessly totally hammered), before heading back to the camp site.
We watched the cloud move in over the ridge of Meall an t-Suidhe as the evening wore on before finally hitting the sack about 11-ish.

Monday 2nd June - Tough Ol’ Ben

We both slept badly after being eaten alive by mosquito throughout the night. Apparently this was the time that they have all just hatched, which was nice, but at 4am when I decided to retreat to the car, I had to physically part the way though the thick grey cloud of the blood suckers. Horrible, horrible, horrible!
So, with a couple of hours sleep we skipped breakfast in light of still being under severe attack and headed off to the youth hostel where we planned to start our walk. We could have taken the pony track/tourist route from the beginning which slowly worked it's way up the side of the mountain, but we, in all our wisdom decided to cut this by taking a harder route from the Youth Hostel. A mistake.
The climb was somewhat harder than we'd originally realised and with the sun on our backs in windless conditions we were pretty damn shattered by the time we reached the path. Legs were burning and we took a brief break, under attack again before continuing on the pony track.
We got round the corner of Meall an t-Suidhe and left the pony track to take the path towards the hut (680m) and North face.
At this point we realised that we were soon to walk into the cloud so took on extra water and food as well as checking the map to confirm our route.
We left the troops of 'tourists' and started the walk around the ridge with Lochan Meall An T-Suidhe on our left before the cloud moved in and reduced visibility to about 30 meters.
These conditions remained pretty much until we got to the hut at the foot of the north face although thick cloud covered the whole of the ridge we were heading up. We took a rough bearing and started the climb from the valley towards the lowest point on the ridge before Carn Mor Dearg. This part of the climb was tough to say the least and over 500m of scramble (hands & knees) in near vertical climbing. As it happened we almost climbed directly to Carn Mor Dearg after straying off our original baring. The thick low cloud reducing visibility to under 20m. Another mistake then and a lot more difficult climbing than we actually had to do ... still we we're ok and up there in the snow, even if totally shattered and soaked with sweat.
The walk along the Carn Mor Dearg arete was superb and well worth the climb. The clouds broke at times to let us realise just where we were and the dangers, and the views were simply breathtaking.
At the end of the aręte we met a film crew where I stared as 'Rob The Rock' (after being told to sit down and stay still) ... haha ... and then we faced the final climb. It was a leg killer make no mistake!
We knew we were close so grit our teeth, dug deep and cracked on, and finally reached the snow capped peek.
The decent was knee and ankle jarring over rock after rock but took us no time at all with the huge carrot of a few pints waiting for us at the bottom. One down and two to go ... just hoping that the others aren't as tough as this.

Tuesday 3rd June - Back to England

We both slept like Lords funnily enough after a few deserved beers and set off for England, sore, but still dead mad for it.
We arrived at the National Trust camp site at the foot of Scafell again with hours to spare, and spent most of the afternoon re-packing our bags and checking out our routes.
The weather was superb. Hot and sunny with full visibility and with similar weather planned for tomorrow I decided to lighten my pack as much as possible (including hat, gloves & fleece), following the previous climb on Ben where I mostly blamed the two and a half stone pack for it being so difficult.
Anyway, I cooked a bumper meal of breakfast tinned beans, Cumberland sausages, scrambled egg and possibly the thickest bread in the world, washed down with a solitary can of cold Heineken … nice!
The mosquito were out in force again come the late evening, but armed with the recently purchased fly killing spray we were on top this time and got a half decent night’s sleep.

Wednesday 4th June - Don't stray off the path

The title is funny for a few reasons.
As I might have mentioned we weren't walking any of the tourist routes as they we're 'too easy' and suitably dull/boring in places, so the Scafell climb started up the ridge of Lingfell and looped round.
The weather was okay but a little cloudy, still I saw no reason to re-pack my gloves etc so after more bananas for breakfast, we headed for Lingfell at approx 7am.
The morning didn't start all the well for me ... I was in considerably more pain than Sparky after Ben and then right at the beginning of this climb we (I) took the wrong path which meant to correct we had to cross a stream.
On said stream I slipped on a rock and fell in twisting my ankle slightly and as it was so deep managed to get water into both boots .... bloody ideal !!
After many curses we moved on (Sparky trying desperately not to laugh) and began the climb.
From where we were it didn't look all that tough but it just goes to show how you shouldn't judge a book eh ?
The views were superb on the way up, but to complete my morning the cloud was much worse and the temperature dropping with every step.
By the time we entered the cloud and got to the first highpoint of the ridge, the wind was strong and again visibility fell short to about 30m.
Then, as if things couldn't get any worse, it started spitting! hahaha
We put on our waterproofs and after about an hour more of walking/climbing we reached the summit of Lingmell ... the wind had finally dropped and cloud cleared on occasions to give cracking views all around.
A few piccys and then off again, firstly dropping down from Lingmell and then starting the long climb up the side of Scafell Pike. Half way up we saw a man coming down with possibly the shortest shorts I have ever seen in my life, which is where Sparky commented that he was risking it wearing clothes like that round here and how he shouldn’t stray from the path for fear of what the locals would do to him. Not sure he totally got it but I was in raptures.
By the time we reached to top we were both soaked from 'walking in bin liners' and the wind up the top made it very cold indeed. Quick pictures and we were off again towards Scafell.
We couldn't make it to Scafell as the path was too bad for us so instead we bundled down Mickledore onto the slippery brown tongue :-) which took us back to our start.
At the bottom we bathed our feet in the stream to cool them, before scrubbing up and heading off to the Wasdale Head Inn for some Steak and Ale pie and jars of lager (not the 'local lager' though .... steer clear of that by the way).

Thursday 5th June - The Way Of The Dragon

We woke fairly early with hangovers, snapped the tent up and expertly shoved it into the back of the van. Mark drove first as I was clearly still in a bad way and I spent the first half hour trying desperately not to be sick.
After a decent pit stop at some services though, all resumed as normal and we continued on our merry way.
As soon as we entered Wales it started to rain.
The first pitch we went to was in a farmer's field which was uneven and had thunder boxes as bogs .... a quick glance at each other and we turned the van round in search of another.
The rain continued while we tried to find a new pitch, while we put the tent up and for the following 2 hours or so.
We went to the pub to shoot some pool to get out of it as it was thoroughly depressing.
We got back to the site and the rain finally stopped which meant it was time for ... yep ... you got it ... Mozzi attack time. Hooray !
We agreed together that we'd had enough of being eaten and headed back to the pub where we booked in for the night. Bed by 11 and a sound, comfortable night’s sleep to boot.

Friday 6th June - Let's Just Take The Train

After breakfast (which was laid on) we set off about 9 and headed for our start. We'd two routes for this, both of which were up and down jobs climbing from ridge to ridge for some outstanding views. We decided to cut across the valley past a small lake before climbing the ridge in front of us (the yellow line on our route map), but what we didn't think about was the amount of rain that had fallen the day before. It was a nightmarish bog really hard on the legs and like walking on about 3 foot of sponge. Still, the day was a corker and nothing was going to stop us today on our final day. We battled our way to the top of ridge after ridge until reaching the foot of Snowdon and breezed our way up to the top of that also.
We’d not seen a single person all day until just before we met the tourist path (which was nice), although we were shadowed for quite a while by a RAF helicopter (no idea why).
Cloudy conditions at the top and a wind chill which froze my fingers for the brief time we stood there, but at times the cloud broke and wind dropped to show beautiful scenes around and below.
The journey back down was along the tourist route and went on for like an age but we'd done it and didn't care.
A celebratory pint and double burger and chips in the pub sealed the climb/day ... which just left the long journey home to our loved ones. We got home about 22:30 in the end ... a superb week away and an amazing achievement for both of us.

Hope you've enjoyed this read - thanks once again for your support.