“Terror on the slopes of death” read one paper’s headline. The climb was nowhere near as bad as described by the Daily Mail, but then again few things are. Typical March weather swept over Ben Nevis and conditions deteriorated. We were just 100 metres below the summit but had already been climbing for ten hours. Our “Three Peaks Challenge” was not off to a great start.
The concept of the Three Peaks is simple: you must climb the highest mountain in Scotland, England and Wales within 24 hours, including driving between the three.
As well as the environmental damage caused by so many people climbing the same hills, critics point out that the event verges on being more of a driving marathon than a footrace. And as I first completed the Three Peaks when I was 13 I have felt little inclination to repeat it. But when my friend Phil Packer asked me to join him in taking on the challenge, I was delighted to say yes. Phil was a soldier in Iraq when he sustained injuries which left him in a wheelchair with slim prospects of ever walking again. Last year I rowed from England to France with him.
A combination of good fortune and massive determination means that Phil can now walk again, albeit very slowly, unsteadily, and with the aid of a stick. He wanted to try to complete the Three Peaks in just three days.
Joining Phil on this Sport Relief challenge was celebrity TV presenter Kate Silverton. Myself and a couple of others would accompany them to carry loads, navigate, and make sure things remained safe.

Phil announced his challenge on breakfast news and then, once Kate had finished the show, we drove from London to Ben Nevis. Snow lay thick on the ground even at the foot of the mountain as climber Andy Kirkpatrick led our entourage upwards, our headtorches bobbing like fireflies in the early morning darkness.
At first Phil made surprisingly good progress. He used two trekking poles to steady himself, the track was smooth and firmly packed, and the ascent was gradual. It was still much slower progress than an able-bodied hiker would make.
As we climbed higher Phil found the going much harder. Knee deep snow that you sink into is tiring for anyone, but for Phil, with limited strength, balance, or feeling in his limbs it was very hard. He fell frequently which tired him even more.

Another hurdle for Phil is that he is unable to control the temperature in his feet. This meant that Andy and I shared the lovely job of occasionally warming up his feet on our belly!
By early afternoon we were all using crampons and ice axes to help us climb steep snow slopes. At one point we had to traverse a steep avalanche chute, the novice climbers roped up and anxious.
Phil, clearly shattered, continued plodding upwards without a word of complaint. Nothing would have made him give up. But the weather was closing in, the temperature dropping, and we had been climbing for 10 hours already. Andy made the call, tantalisingly close to the summit, that it was time to go down. Everybody was disappointed but you can’t argue with a Scottish mountain in winter. We turned and dashed downwards.
The word ‘dashed’ may be an exaggeration. It took five hours to descend. Able-bodied hikers can be up and down the peak inside five hours.
I had been impressed by Phil’s stoic, patient determination on the long climb, but the hell of the descent escalated my admiration of him to a new level. The snow was softer than it had been in the morning and we sank through to our knees on most strides. This was tiring and tedious for all of us but for Phil it was a nightmare. His balance is bad so he fell over several times every minute. Phil is a really big man so it took two of us to haul him to his feet each time. The frustration, the indignity, the knowledge that this hike was so much more difficult for him than for the rest of us must have been hugely upsetting but he never complained or lost his temper.
We came up with a system. One person walked in front, his headtorch picking out the best route through the snow. Phil leaned on this person’s pack for balance, and another person steadied him from the side. But even so Phil fell often. At one point he tried crawling, moving slowly down Britain’s highest mountains on his hands and knees. I found this upsetting to watch and dropped behind the others until Phil abandoned the crawling approach (humans evolved to be bipedal for good reason) and I took my turn again helping him down.
We were all very wet, very cold and very tired by the time we reached the bottom at 9pm. We had run out of time to make the summit, but I saw Phil’s effort as an enormous triumph rather than a failure.

We pointed our noses south, bound for England’s highest peak, Scafell Pike. On top of everything Kate and Phil had many media commitments to attend to before they could go to sleep. Thankfully nobody had any interest in me so I was soon snoring happily for three or four hours.

I love Scafell Pike and Wasdale, the valley the mountain rises from. It is my favourite place in England. So I was excited to share it with Phil and Dan who had never been there. Phil and Kate were, understandably, exhausted after our epic on the Ben and a night with little sleep. Andy was no longer with us so I was nominally in charge for the next two peaks. I tried my best to drum some urgency into our torpid team but we took so long getting ready that I was already worried about our summit chances before we had even begun.
Phil found Scafell Pike’s steep rocky track difficult to negotiate. But the sun was shining and spirits were high. Things actually became easier for Phil when we reached the snowline and donned crampons. On Scafell Pike you must climb a very steep slope up to the saddle between Scafell and Scafell Pike. This was thick with snow and I had worried that it would be beyond our limits. But with crampons and a pair of ice axes Phil ground his way steadily up it. From the saddle the summit is in sight and there was no way Phil would not reach it now. We stood back to applaud as Phil and Kate approached the summit cairn, Sport Relief banner in hand. Able-bodied, fit people who have climbed Scafell Pike may not quite be able to appreciate what a massive, massive achievement it was for Phil to be standing, unsupported as the highest man in England just two years after being told he would never walk again.
But I was in anxious mood and unwilling to linger. I was eager that we drop as far as we could before darkness, at the very least to the foot of the steep snow slope which Phil would have to be lowered down on a rope. As we descended below the summit mist we were indulged with an epic, private sunset display, the sea and the Isle of Man blazing red beneath us. It was the perfect reward for the day.
We got everyone down the steep section comfortably and then made great progress as Phil sat on his backside and took a controlled slide down the rest of the snow. However it was still very late when we reached the vehicles and we had been on the move for 14 hours. To put this in perspective, last year Ben and I nipped up and down the peak in 2.5 hours.
Although we were all proud to have completed Scafell Pike we were well aware that this challenge was proving far, far tougher than we had anticipated. But we could not linger – we were to be met in the morning by Sir Clive Woodward and Sir Steve Redgrave who were coming to meet Phil at Snowdon, the highest peak in Wales.

Dawn greeted us at the foot of Snowdon. But, for the first time since we began the challenge, spirits were low. Although Phil was being braver and more determined than I had ever seen him, he was also really struggling. The snow and low temperatures were draining and the short winter days made everything more difficult and potentially dangerous. Phil, Kate and we three support climbers sat down and had a difficult, but fascinating discussion about what we should do. It is a conundrum I have wrestled often with by myself about my own trips. The opinions expressed ranged like this:

– Phil had achieved a hell of a lot already. There was no need to do more to prove anything. We should just go for a pleasant walk today and enjoy it.
– We should attempt to climb Snowdon but with a pre-arranged turnaround time. It was foolhardy to do another night-time descent. As it would not be possible for Phil to reach the top before the turnaround time this approach was based on the belief that having a go was the important part, not reaching the summit.
– Climb the mountain and not come back down until we knocked the bastard off. To hell with everything else. We had come to climb the mountain, and that meant the summit.

Thankfully, with a rare glimpse of diplomatic skills, I found a compromise option that everyone was happy with. We would climb as far as we could that day, then camp on the mountain, and complete the ascent the next day. It was safe, we stood a better chance of reaching the summit, and the fact that it would take us two days to climb Snowdon would highlight to people how strenuous this challenge was for Phil.
But before we could begin Kate had to do her day job. A mobile studio had been set up in the legendary climbers’ cafe in Llanberis, Pete’s-Eats. Kate broadcast her Sunday morning radio show from the cafe, dressed appropriately in down jacket and wooly hat, and clutching an enormous mug of tea bearing the slogan “BECAUSE IT’S THERE”. She interviewed Phil, Steve Redgrave and Clive Woodward while I dashed out with Dan and Martyn to get everyone kitted out for a night on the mountain.

After Kate’s show and the biggest breakfast I have ever eaten we set off in glorious sunshine. Steve and Clive accompanied us until late afternoon when we pitched camp on the shore of the frozen lake Glaslyn. I was worried about how everyone would find camping on rough ground on a very cold night. But Kate was enchanted by the explosion of stars over the cauldron of snow-covered peaks that rose above us. Phil was too exhausted to care where he slept, and Dan and I would have stayed outside all night playing with long-exposure star photographs if we had not been told to go to bed.

I was delighted to see Kate’s complete transformation from glamourous journalist to mountain woman. The 4am alarm call was actually a lie-in for her compared to her normal schedule working on the BBC Breakfast show. But it was the readiness with which she ate her breakfast boil-in-the-bag meal that told me her metamorphosis was complete. The Llanberis camping shop had not had any breakfast foods so our morning menu was a choice of Chicken Tikka or Chilli con Carne…

We began to climb, picking out our route up the Miners’ track with head torches. As usual I scampered forwards and backward trying to find the smoothest pieces of path for Phil to follow. But he was struggling and, before the sun had even risen, I thought that he was going to have to give up. But he dug even deeper into his extraordinary resolve and climbed higher.
We were blessed with one of those perfect days in the mountains. I have climbed Snowdon four or five times and never been able to see more than a few yards. But that day was a crystal clear day, like a perfect day on a skiing holiday. A beautiful sunrise, crisp snow and blue skies. We edged higher, roping up for the final steep section of the climb. And at last we were standing on top of Wales. An RAF jet detoured to salute us with a fly-by of the summit, dipping its wings in tribute to a fellow serviceman’s extraordinary courage. But Phil’s time as a soldier is almost over. He is leaving the Army to launch his own project, the British Inspiration Trust. BRIT will work to inspire, empower and motivate disabled young people. There can be no better role model for them than Phil.

Click on these links to learn more about Phil and BRIT, or to make a donation for our Three Peaks Challenge to Sports Relief.

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