This weekend was spent with the Ladies and Gents of 2 of the most distinguished Squadrons in the entire British Army - C Sqn(The Royal Gloucestershire Hussars) and D Sqn (The Royal Devon Yeomanry) of the Royal Wessex Yeomanry. The reason for the event, other than a bit of adventurous training/beasting was to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund and Cloud 9 Children's Charity. After driving up to Fort William on the Friday and having spent a night battling the midges in an isolated yet beautiful bothy, we started up Ben Nevis (1,344 metres/4,409 ft)at 7am on the Saturday morning. We took the usual route of the Pony Track, which ascends the mountain from Glen Nevis. The highlight of the ascent (and descent) was seeing the Beyond Boundaries teams racing up the mountain. In an event organised by Ken Hames (him again!), 8 teams containing 6 able-bodied climbers and 1 wheelchair bound person each were attempting to reach the summit of Ben Nevis. In an amazing show of stamina, strength and teamwork, the teams pushed, hauled, pulled and shoved the specially constructed chairs to the summit. Just watching them sweating their way up the mountain left our team quite breathless, but in utter awe of them - congratulations to them all! We arrived at the top at about 10.15am, and very back down in the car park and on the road by 1.30pm. After a long drive to Scafell Pike in the Lake District (978m/3,209ft) we started up at about 7.40pm, arriving at the top by 9.40pm, and back down and on the road by 11.30pm. Making good time to Snowdon (1,085 metres/3,560 ft) in North Wales we started at about 4.30am, and the final member of the ascent party reached the top by 6.10am. So from start to finish (about 2960m/9200ft) in 23 hours and 10 minutes, which was great - especially considering our minibuses were limited to 60mph, so we were definitely losing time in comparison to the other teams doing the same course. The team was fantastic, with 7 out of 10 completing all 3 peaks. A massive thank you to the support crew, who hardly managed to get any sleep but were instrumental in helping us complete the challenge.

Mutterings of the 4 Peaks next year... will the Sgt. Major be quite so keen again?!