The Ben Nevis Challenge - 31^st May 2008

This all started for me when I received an email from Leanne at Capability Scotland about two weeks ago telling me about an event that was being organised to raise money and awareness for Capability Scotland and Scope.  Straight away my ears pricked up as I have always been keen on doing events like these and needed to find out more.  The challenge was to have teams led by wheelchair users reach the summit of Ben Nevis and the expedition would be led by ex SAS man Ken Hames.  First of all we had to get through a training weekend which would be held in the Lake District and would give us all a chance to meet our team members and learn what we'd need to do.

The training weekend started for me with a six and half hour journey up to the lakes that should have taken four and a half!  I new I shouldn't have been a cheapskate and should have taken the toll road!!  So I finally arrive at Youth hostel Arnside; a well meaning youth hostel in a picturesque village in the middle of the Lake District.  Thankfully, as so many had suffered the same fate of the dreaded M6, dinner had been postponed so I still managed to eat.  After dinner our group of wheelchair users, organisers, and volunteers headed down to the village hall where we would meet our expedition leader Ken Hames and learn about our task.  Ken is ex SAS but is best known for leading so far three expeditions of disabled people across some of the most inhospitable terrain in the world, also known as the TV production called Beyond Boundaries. Julie McElroy would also be attending; Julie who is 21 was one of the team members of the latest Beyond Boundaries expeditions that managed to cross the Andes in South America.  Julie has Cerebral Palsy but has that steely determination and drive that would put most of us to shame.  It's as though she sets out to prove that nothing is impossible even with a disability but she hasn't set out to prove anything, Julie is just living the life that she feels is right for her.

This weekend would be purely training to get ourselves accustomed to the equipment, get used to the type of terrain we would be climbing on and also to get to know our team mates who had volunteered from all walks of life.  My team included four members from Barclays Commercial, Pete, Rob, Caroline and Louise and one member Cat from Burness , the overall sponsor of the event.  Ken arrived in the small village hall to brief us on the days ahead and what would be involved in getting us to the top of Ben Nevis.  Was he really trying to scare us?  Thankfully right next door to the hall is a pub where most of us then congregated to meet and discuss the next couple of days.

Day 1; 5:30am.  Due to there being only one wheelchair accessible shower and toilet in the youth hostel I was wakened by Dave, another four wheeler in my dorm to let me know he had finished in the shower and it was my turn, great thanks Dave!! I showered and went back to the dorm to get dressed and ready.  First thing was to go back to the village hall and meet Russell from RGK wheelchairs, Russell is the MD of RGK and they would be supplying us with the wheelchairs that we would be using for the event.  These are not normal wheelchairs as you will see by the picture but more four wheeled mountain bike but with no brakes, which is a slightly scary prospect to say the least and means that you have to put your trust in your team members 100%.  Firstly we needed to get used to the equipment so we spent most of Saturday on the hills around Arnside learning how to best to pull and push the chair with me on it.  One of the first challenges would be a five bar gate that we had to get over and we had to work out the best way ourselves.  These would be the kind of problems we'd be faced with on Ben Nevis and we had to learn how to tackle them now. 

Day 2, 7.30am.  Decided to give myself a lie in as the shower itself was pretty useless and really not worth getting up two hours beforehand for.  Today was going to be much harder than yesterday; if day one was all about familiarising yourself with your team members and equipment day two was about familiarising yourself with the type of terrain we would be battling against on our ascent to the top of Ben Nevis.  Whereas yesterday had been mostly a run round a country park with a few steep hill thrown in for fun today was all about what we would really be facing, and that meant steep inclines riddled with boulders, walls, tree trunks and slippery steep shingle tracks.  It was up to us to work out the best route through and that wasn't always easy.  By 12 o'clock we had reached the top of one of the hills in the Lakes but we all realised this was nowhere near the effort that would be needed to get to the top of Ben Nevis.  Ken felt we had not even accomplished a 10^th of what we would be doing on the real climb.By the time we got back down again it was well past lunchtime and time for us all to go on our separate ways.  I think we all had had an amazing weekend but I think we all left that hillside with a little more respect for the challenge ahead.  Ken also left us with some parting advice, more training, definitely more training which was not what we wanted to hear...

Some video clips to come soon when I have edited out all the backsides and swearing from them!!!