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Wood and Maidwell Challenge
10 months ago a friend of mine Andy Maidwell came up with idea of walking around the Lake District climbing Wainwright’s top 12 fells, visiting 12 lakes and 12 tarns in 12 days.
We would raise money for Willow Burn Hospice and Help for Heroes by asking for sponsorship and holding fundraising events.
Not long afterwards, a colleague of Andy’s asked if he could join us for the duration and pledged to donate half of his fundraising which would be matched by BP to our charities.
So after a lot of careful planning we set off on the 10th October on our adventure accompanied by friend’s colleagues who had offered to join us for the day. We started the head of Ullswater and walked our way around the lakes climbing Helvellyn, The Langdale pikes Coniston old man, Crinkle Crags and Bowfell, Great Gable and Blencathra to name but a few.
The bigger challenge of all proved to be the weather which was definitely unseasonal two of our days were sunny but the rest were a mixture of torrential rain, mist, hailstones, thunder and lightning and 90mph winds, but even that didn’t dampen our spirits although sadly kept us off the top of the Scafells.
We received tremendous support from over 50 people who either joined us walking, cooked breakfast and dinner or drove us around, and we were accompanied by 8 dogs that also provided support and entertainment.
Our fundraising total currently stands at around £12,000, £6,000 both for Willow Burn Hospice and Help for Heroes. Despite being a challenging experience we have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, often being in a world surreal with no phone or TV signal and I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone for their support and encouragement.
To ensure that every t is crossed and I is dotted we plan to return next spring to climb Scafell and Scafell Pike if anyone would like to join us.