the 3 peaks - part one

Well, I�m still aching, though not as bad as Monday. Walking up and down steps is still on the painful side. I feel, apart from pain, quietly elated at having actually done it, as well as a certain sense of anticlimax. Yesterday, I said I�d never do this again, but I�m already beginning to feel that it�s still possible in the future, as long as the weather isn�t as vile as it was this time.
It all began well: My friend, Rob, and I drove up from Reading to his workplace in Kidlington and met up with the other team members early on Friday. We were 14 all told; 3 drivers/ support team and 11 climbers, led by Julie, who had come up with the idea in the first place. We got our three hire vans, loaded up our gear, and set off. I was with Rob, Chris, and our support driver Victoria. We made incredible time on the journey North, thanks to Rob caning it up to Cumbria � we left at 9.40 and were on the Scottish border by about 1.30, including having a break. It was the first time I�d travelled north of the border, and I found the scenery, traced out in bright sunlight, utterly beautiful. After a few more hours, we arrived in Fort William at 6.40, only to find that we hadn�t read our instructions properly, and needed to go back about 20 miles to our accommodation for the night, a youth hostel in the Great Glen. When we arrived , we found the rest of the team had only just got there. The Youth Hostel was a fairly grotty, run-down house, with house martins nesting in the eaves and midges billowing around us. We unloaded our stuff into our bunkrooms, then drove into Fort Augustus for a meal. The restaurant was just above Loch Ness; It had an entertainer, playing middle-of-the road music from the seventies; a reasonable menu, and, after a late evening shower, one of the most spectacular views of a rainbow I�ve ever seen. A tall, blonde-haired scot, wearing a kilt and accompanied by a short, wiry guy in cowboy costume wandered in, both somewhat self-consciously it seemed to me. Outside, drinking a whisky and smoking, I looked at the wonderful scenery and thought: No wonder it�s empty. There�s bugger all for kids here apart from farming, fishing and tourism.
I spent a night of broken sleep, trying to will myself into deep slumber, but not really able to do so until about 4 in the morning. A strange image kept coming to mind: a kangaroo, with a voice saying, �follow the kangaroo.� Where to, though?
Eventually, we were up and out the door by 8.30. We drove into Fort William, with a few hours to kill before we started the journey. We had breakfast in the Nevis Sport caf� � beans, egg, hash brown, sausage meat, black pudding and bacon � then kicked our heels around the town until 1.00. We were planning on starting to climb at 3, so that we could finish around 8, head for Cumbria and start Scafell at quarter to three, descending from there in daylight, then heading for Snowdon.
We arrived at the base of Ben Nevis, near the Youth Hostel and the bridge over the river, by 1.15. Richard and Rick, the two army guys and experienced mountain survival experts, were the team leaders, and gave us a final briefing before we headed off. After that, we heated water, made teas and coffees and in my case, an utterly disgusting Pot Noodle, and sorted out what equipment we would take with us. At first, I was going to take my main pack, but realised it would be too heavy. I ended up with an awkward arrangement of a camelback water carrier and a daysack, which I tried to organise as comfortably as I could. At ten to three, we set out, and the countdown began.