Real3Peaks 2017

A blip that reflects my couch bound status in more ways than one. None of these pics are directly mine, though I did make the collage.

The Real3Peaks event that I helped start and for which I'm the Lakes Coordinator was 5 years old last weekend. I've known since March that it would be unlikely that I'd be able to physically attend, but that's let me focus on organising and, wonderfully, expanding the event. This year it was bigger than ever.
It's been our hope since day one that this would be as much about education and inspiration as it is about the rubbish - we've long wanted to tackle more than the "Big 3" albeit they've given us a fantastic platform. This year we managed to cover 7 mountains, and we've generated interest in at least 15 for 2018. Our publicity has grown, we've been on the BBC, ITV, Sky and even (deep breath, all publicity is good publicity) The Sun.

We bill the event as a deep clean - the observant amongst you might be able to make out that the snack packet in this blip has a best before date of 1987! And yes, those are underpants - not a surprise to seasoned volunteers, this year's haul of 3 pairs (just on Scafell Pike) was down on the 2015 collection of 7. Equally disgusting was the 4kg of just chewing gum that one volunteer took off the Ben - that's a supermarket carrier bag full.

So 2017 reported:
7 mountains cleaned
570kg of litter removed (total to date is now 2.6tonnes)
109 volunteers - in truly horrendous conditions, 2 teams were turned back on the Pike for safety, Ben Macdui recorded 74mph winds.
We had reports from 11 mountain guiding companies who had clients collecting on the day, they're not included in our totals, despite being stars.
We've worked with (& been praised by) The National Trust, the John Muir Trust, the Snowdon Society, BMC, SMC, Mountain Training Association and that fab host of local companies.

I'm very proud of it, so it's today's journal.

Yesterday  - many of you were right, it's a couplet to remember how to do stairs on crutches. And it's not easy I can tell you!