On Saturday 23rd October, 5 of the Kili team (Brian, Grant, Tony, Lisa and Nigel) climbed Ben Nevis in Scotland as part of their training. The weather was cool and crisp - thank god no rain!
The climb was to be honest brilliant and everyone ascended with relative ease. For my part I was just so impressed with the self-evident training that everyone had been doing. After about half way, the temperature dropped below freezing and snow gradually sprinkled the ground. Slowly but surely the depth increased such that by the time we reached the summit (in a pretty good 3 hours 40 minutes) we were 6 to 9 inches deep.
Whilst the going up was pretty straight forward, we all struggled though with the descent over the Kilimanjaro-like rocks and paid for it for the next few days with aching limbs. Memo to everyone - train downhill as well as uphill! There is just no substitute for real training in a real live environment!
