Three Peaks Challenge another way

The Three peaks challenge is well know. Climb the three highest peaks in Great Britain in twenty four hours. However climate change, speeding laws and environmental problems have all lead to people condemning the most physically demanding challenge available in the UK. So a group of enterprising people have developed the ThreePeaks by Public Transport challenge. Its simple, climb all three peaks and travel between them using public transport alone. This can be buses, trains, planes, but no taxis or hitch hiking.

The three peaks are Ben Nevis (Scotland), Scarfell Pike (England and Snowdon (Wales). Ben Nevis is 1344 meters high; Scarfell Pike is 978 meters and Snowdon 1085 meters.

One of the main problems with the traditional three peaks challenge is that climbing three such high mountains means that there is little time to travel between them. Often the driver is forced to stay away for the whole twenty four hours, much of the driving takes place at night and speeding is common.

The challenge has been so over subscribed that in the height of the walking season the three mountains are packed with people jostling for the quickest route up the mountain. This results in environmental erosion of the paths on a large scale. The car parks are packed and often people have to wait ages to find a parking spot. Several of the roads leading to the mountains, in particular Scarfell Pike are narrow. This means that congestion is a nightmare. As Scarfell Pike, being the smallest and easier scaled of the three, is often climbed at night this means that the local have cars queuing outside their houses and commotion all night long.

Hikers often bring their own food and water on the trek with them, so the local community doesn’t profit from the challenge at all. Littering is a common problem as is a lack of respect for the countryside. Therefore the challenge has earnt itself a bad reputation.

The solution proposed is the three peaks challenge by public transport. No more problems with congestion, parking and pollution. Some of the money spent on transport will go to local bus companies, and as the hiker will have to carry everything on their backs they are more likely to buy supplies from local shops.

So how easy is the challenge then? Well as all good challenges go, not very! The three peaks are naturally in some of the least populated areas of the UK. Therefore public transport is infreuqent. At peak season things are a little easier, off season this is probably an impossible challenge. However it is just about, with careful timing, precision planning and no allowances for twisted ankles, possible. Of course the extra work involved in organising this to the more traditional challenge is actually more appealing to those who prefer their walking to be a little more exciting than a Sunday stroll around the block. Lets face it anyone whose idea of fun is finding the three highest mountains and trying to climb them one after another as fast as possible isn’t going to let something as unreliable as public transport stand in its way.

All that’s needed now is for the local communities, usually the loudest in condemning the challenge, to throw their support behind this new venture and campaign for greater public transport to the three peaks. If that were to happen then it may be possible for this challenge to become more popular than the old one. After all surely hikers should be more green aware than anyone else?