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Nick's 3 Peaks Challenge
When Nick first came up with the idea of doing the 24 hour Three Peaks Challenge he admits that he had thought about weather, but hadn't thought about climbing in driving rain with winds gusting at around 60 mph, all of which was due to the arrival in Britain of the remains of Hurricane Katia.
The 'team' of climbers consisted of Nick Roden, who is in Year 11, his brother, James, and friend Edward Reid, both of whom are 19 and former students of Abbey Gate College. Ed is of course no stranger to adventure and danger having survived the 2 strong earthquakes that struck New Zealand last year while he was on a one year choral scholarship. They began climbing on Nick’s 16th birthday.
The first leg was the drive up to Fort William and Britain's highest mountain, Ben Nevis, standing at 1344 metres. They started in the light at 4.30 p.m. and pushed themselves to get up and down in four and a half hours. They had not climbed the mountain before, and although clearly marked they found the climb a real challenge, especially in the heavy rain.
After a drive through the night the team arrived at Scafell Pike at 3.15 a.m. The climb began in the dark and while head torches were vital, the thick cloud that reduced visibility to 2m meant that, after consulting with other climbers, they decided it was not safe to continue despite the fact they were only 5 minutes away from the summit!
Despite further heavy rain and winds gusting up to 70mph the trio arrived at Mount Snowden and climbed it in just over three and a half hours and had completed the challenge with over an hour to spare.
This is a fantastic achievement but Nick has no plans to hang up his walking boots. This is just a start to future adventures and Nick aims to return to Scafell Pike in October to complete the last 5 minutes worth of the climb he could not complete due to the weather, as well as cycling from John O'Groats to Land's End in aid of the Help For Heroes charity and he also aims to climb Mount Elbrus, Europe's highest mountain.