How to do the Three Peaks Challenge sustainably and luxuriously

Times

12 hours ago

'Summer on the high plateau can be as delectable as honey; it can also be a roaring scourge.' From the summit of Ben Nevis I could just make out the silhouette of the Cairngorms, the mountain range more than 100 miles away in the eastern Highlands of Scotland about which the poet and hillwalker Nan Shepherd wrote those arresting words in 1945. I'd lucked out. On this particular July morning with barely a hint of breeze, the gods had afforded me one of the 'delectable as honey' days.
Lifted above the clouds, I felt positively Lilliputian trying to make sense of the limitless view. The sharp peak of Càrn Mòr Dearg, one of the tallest mountains in Scotland but destined to be eternally overshadowed by its 4,413ft neighbour, sat just below me, lacy wisps of fog tickling its sides. From there, the outlines of the Torridon Hills, the Grampians, the Monadhliath Mountains, the Isle of Rum and countless other peaks melted into one another, vast waves of rock undulating into the distance, their eastern flanks drenched in sunlight. I turned to my guide, James, who I expected to be impatient to begin our descent. Instead, he sat quite calmly at the foot of the ruins of the old Ben Nevis observatory, a snow bunting picking at crumbs beneath his feet, and said: 'We have all the time in the world.'
This wasn't something I'd expected to hear on this particular day. Just over two hours ago, a little after sunrise, my friend Max and I had parked up at Fort William to begin our attempt of the Three Peaks Challenge, which involves ascending and descending the three highest peaks of Scotland, England and Wales — Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Yr Wyddfa, recently renamed from Snowdon — in less than 24 hours. That's 10,052 feet of climbing over 23 miles, plus about 460 miles of driving in between.
The speed record was set by Joss Naylor, a Lake District sheep farmer who died last year at the age of 88. In 1971 the 'flying shepherd' stormed up Ben Nevis in blinding rain, before being driven to the Lake District and down to Wales in a rally-spec Ford Vita 6 Capri, piloted by his friend Frank Davies. Exactly 11 hours and 54 minutes after he placed his foot in the waters at Fort William, sounding the starting gun, he dipped his hand into the Irish Sea at Caernarfon. The less said about speed limits, the better.
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The amount of driving involved in the challenge is one of its environmental drawbacks, along with the sheer number of walkers who attempt it and disruption to the communities around the peaks. 'The trails are fairly durable, so there's not much impact on the mountains themselves,' said Mike Pescod, 52, an experienced mountain guide and director of the Nevis Landscape Partnership who has lived in the shadow of Ben Nevis for 30 years. 'The main negative is on the people that live and work in these places. Many visitors that come treat it more like a safari park, but shepherds have their sheep out on Ben Nevis and people work on the glen. To them, it's just home. When somebody comes with a very focused mind to get up and down Ben Nevis as quickly as they can, that can affect their behaviour.'
As well as affording the landscape and its people the necessary reverence, we would attempt to do things differently. First, by setting off midweek so as not to add to the weekend crowds. Second, thanks to the kind people at Polestar, the all-electric car company, we had a slick EV at our disposal. Finally, the carbon footprint of my entire trip — including the drive from London to Ben Nevis, walking snacks, car charging and the return train from Bangor — would be totted up and analysed by A Greener Future, a non-profit specialising in carbon footprint analysis, which would be able to determine to the nearest gram just how carbon intensive my challenge had been.
Fifty minutes ahead of schedule, we descended Ben Nevis, jogging past a few dozen walkers and having a quick plunge in the crystal waters of the River Nevis before climbing into the back seat of the Polestar 3 I'd driven up from London, now commandeered by a chauffeur and former military man. One can only imagine the comfort levels Naylor and Davies experienced in their rally-spec Capri on the 245-mile drive to Scafell Pike, but I doubt it would have been a match for the Polestar, which feels as if you're being driven around in a palatial conservatory on a set of ice skates. Nor do I think they would have had the luxury of five (pleasantly firm) massage settings in their seats — ideal for a challenge that is as much a road trip as it is a hiking expedition.
We would be charging en route, aiming to only use chargers that reported a supply of 100 per cent renewable electricity. There are now more than 50,000 public charging points in the UK, compared with about 8,000 petrol stations, so this was a cinch, the only minor downside being that it added some journey time for us to make up on the mountains. That being said, the Polestar 3 recently set the world record for the longest journey travelled by an electric SUV on a single charge – 581.3 miles – dispelling any lingering concerns of range anxiety.
Wastwater, the deepest lake in England, came into view, with 3,209 feet of Scafell Pike standing like an imposing citadel just beyond its northern tip. Once again, faced with the duality and unpredictability of nature, our luck continued. The Romantic poet John Wilson, writing on the banks of Wastwater in 1812, noted that it could be both 'the cradle of storms, where silence never tames the mountain-roar', but at other times a 'gentle Lake [that] lies like a sleeping child too blest to wake'. We were treated to the latter. Climbing in the late afternoon on a Wednesday meant that, as with Ben Nevis, we were alone in our pursuit of the summit, storming up in just under 90 minutes and allowing a moment for reflection at the top.
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When Samuel Taylor Coleridge set off on his nine-day walking tour of the Lake District in 1802, he became one of the first people — besides local shepherds — to climb Scafell Pike. In a letter to his lover Sara Hutchinson, the sister-in-law of William Wordsworth, he described his giddiness upon reaching the summit despite adverse weather conditions: 'Tho' the wind is strong, and the Clouds are hast'ning hither from the [Irish] Sea… here I could lie warm, and wait methinks for tomorrow's Sun.' This elation turned to panic when he embarked on a dangerous descent, followed by 'a state of almost prophetic Trance and Delight'.
I draw your attention to the work of the Romantic poets because it was at this point in the challenge that I became attuned to the shortcomings of racing up three of our island's most impressive peaks. The Romantic attitude towards hill-climbing and mountaineering was one of high emotion, introspection and inspiration, fuelled by exposure to incredible natural surroundings. After the golden age of alpinism in the 1850s, this gave way to a more Victorian attitude prioritising challenge-seeking and physicality. Our preoccupation with the 24-hour target, while motivating and in some ways exhilarating, felt more akin to the latter.
On the drive down Yr Wyddfa, it was therefore a relief to hear that we were well ahead of schedule, and that we could ease up the pace. The clock struck midnight as our Polestar silently glided into the car park at Pen y Pass, where we met our final guide, a softly spoken Welshman named Hywyn. 'You've done yourself a favour with the first two,' he said, 'so we can take our time with this one.'
Despite walking in darkness, the Pyg Track up Yr Wyddfa was the most illuminating stretch of the challenge. Every few minutes, we would extinguish our head torches, allowing our path to be lit by the glow of the Buck Moon, or stop to lie back on the path and admire the startlingly clear starscape afforded by the area's 'dark sky' status. Hywyn paused every so often to point out glacial striations in the rock faces or clusters of purple saxifrage and map lichen, so called for their cartographical appearance. The peaks around us slowly began to morph from pitch black to charcoal grey, and as we made our final descent from the summit, a monochrome world became tinged with the colours of sunrise. With 40 minutes to spare, we completed our challenge.
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As well as satisfying time, I could go home with a clear conscience. After the clever people at Greener Future had finished their wizardry, they calculated that my resulting carbon footprint for the entire challenge was 41.8kg CO₂e. Had it not been for the renewable electricity supply at charging points, the overall footprint would have been almost four times as high, and travelling using a petrol car would have been almost nine times as carbon intensive. No doubt the vegetarian snacks helped, but overall credit must go to the trusty Polestar 3. While this tour was designed specifically for this trip, it's a lovely blueprint to follow for those looking for a way to take on the famous challenge in a way that involves a minimal footprint.
Nan Shepherd wrote that to know a mountain, to appreciate its essential nature, 'is not done easily nor in an hour'. But she also says it is 'merely stupid to suppose that record-breakers do not love the hills. Those who do not love them don't go up, and those who do can never have enough of it.' Yes, we had beaten the 24-hour time limit, but the main takeaway from my short time spent on these three magnificent mountains was how much they made me want to return to spend more time in their company.
The Polestar 3 starts from £69,910, with a range of up to 438 miles, polestar.com. Guides from Lakeland Ascents start from £225pp, lakelandascents.co.uk