Scaling new heights in memory of dear friend
THREE Stratford women have conquered the daunting Three Peaks Challenge in 24 hours in memory of a dear friend of theirs who died from cancer in April.
Kathryn Deaner, a pilates teacher from Alveston, Marianne Goodson, a pilates teacher from Cherrington, and Sarah Littell, a personal trainer from Little Kineton took on Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon, the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales respectively, in memory of their friend Sarah Archer, aged 44, who died at Myton Hospice, Warwick from lung cancer although she didn’t smoke.
The trio of climbers, who are all in their 40s, managed to summit Ben Nevis at 6.48pm then drove through the night to the Lake District and set off up Scafell Pike, with the aid of head torches at 3.10am, and saw the sun rise and summited at 5.20am. They then drove to Wales to summit Snowdon at 2.02pm, finally reaching the base of Snowdon at 3.41pm. The whole challenge was completed within 23 hours and 41 minutes.
During that time, according to Sarah Littell’s Fitbit, the ladies walked 38 miles using over 80,143 steps, climbed the equivalent of 1,043 flights of stairs and burnt 7,352 calories. They also drove 463 miles between the mountains and had no sleep.
“We got chatting to lots of groups of “3-Peakers” on the mountains and we were the only all-female team and certainly the only self-drivers that we came across. This made the challenge even more difficult as we didn’t have any sleep in the 24 hour period. But we did it! Our inner warriors got us through!” said Kathryn.
Giles Archer, the husband who lost his wife, Sarah, now has to bring up their children, Molly, aged 13 and Sam, 10, and he says he has nothing but praise for his wife’s climbing friends.
“What they have done is a fitting tribute and a very remarkable gesture to my wife which would have made her very proud. My wife was very well liked and had an incredible amount of friends in the community in fact she was the life and soul of the party,” Giles said.
Following their friend Sarah’s death, the climbers decided to attempt the challenge to raise funds for Myton Hospices.
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