Ben Nevis Climb by McCann Health London

McCann Health London have been great supporters of Make 2nds Count and on 16th September 2023 they took a team of 30 employees to climb Ben Nevis. Louise Hewitt, Copy Director at McCann Health London has shared her fundraising story with us.

 

‘Early last month I was obsessively checking the Fort William weather reports, studying the forecasts for a reprise from the rain. I had good reason – on September 16th me and 26 people from the advertising agency we work at were setting out to scale Ben Nevis. 

We were climbing to raise money for Make 2nds Count, in memory of our wonderful colleague Emily. Emily passed away the year before, following a secondary breast cancer diagnosis, and had been a patient advocate for Make 2nds Count. She’d planned the hike as part of her fundraising but hadn’t managed to make it, so we wanted to complete it in her honour. 

Emily was a shining, colourful, riotous human being. As I looked at the rainy forecast, I smiled at the idea that she wouldn’t have let it put her off. Ems was a puddle-jumper and a rainbow-chaser for sure. So I packed my waterproofs, my body weight in Kendal mint cake, and set off northwards. 

The drive up was long and wet, but skirting Loch Lomond we were treated to incredible watercolour skies, slate and gunmetal bleeding into pale heather. It started to clear as we approached our campsite. No one wanted to jinx it, but it was glorious when we gathered early on the day of the walk for fry-ups and big mugs of tea.  

Our party ranged from people who tackle challenges like this many times a year to those who’d never set foot on a mountain before, and plenty of us in-between. We broke into smaller groups as we started walking, finding colleagues who matched our pace, chatting, resting, sharing snacks and stories with people outside our usual work teams. 

The first part of the climb was through fields, serenaded by sheep, then the views opened out across the Highlands as we got higher. A canvas of green and gold against a cloudless blue sky stretched further with every step we took. Lochs, rivers and ever more distant mountains were revealed as we climbed, then our surroundings changed as we crossed the waterfall halfway up. 

The ground got loose and less sure, and vegetation was replaced by a moonscape of granite and a series of increasingly challenging switchbacks. I put my head down and powered on, reaching for NCT breathing training (hee heee hooo!) to keep my muscles moving as I neared the top. I reached the plateau to find many of my team already there – the speediest making it up in 2 hours 40, a full hour quicker than me! 

It was 10 degrees colder at the top than at the visitors centre we’d set out from, and we took photos of our success huddled together in the mist with numb fingers struggling to work our cameras. I was grateful for my Thermos of tea and jam sandwiches at this point – UK hiking MUSTS – but didn’t stay too long in the cold before heading back to the sunshine below. 

We made it down just in time for the rain to resume! We were all in one piece, although some knees, toes, and egos took a battering along the way. And EVERYONE’S calves were screaming at them for the rest of the week. 

It was a wonderful way to spend a day with some colleagues I knew well, and some I only got to know on the walk. I am proud of what we accomplished as a team, both in endurance on the day and in fundraising either side, with £7,360 raised so far and still counting. But most of all I feel privileged to have completed a walk that Emily started. I am not an overly sentimental type, but I can’t help thinking she sent us one magical single day of sun’.

Blog written by Louise Hewitt, Copy Director at McCann Health London.

 

We would like to thank everyone from McCann Health London for raising an amazing £7,486.75 for Make 2nds Count.