The Red Watch crew from the Portsmouth station began their challenge to climb more than the combined heights of the world’s three largest mountains, on Saturday morning.
Cheered on by Christmas shoppers, the firefighters surpassed their target, scaling a massive 100,000ft at the city’s Gunwharf Quays shopping centre.
Climbing throughout the night, the challenge was in aid of two charities, The Fire Fighters Charity and Leukaemia Care UK and in total they were able to raise more than £4,500.
Firefighter Gareth Smith, Southsea Red Watch said:
“We are fundraising for these two charities which are very close to our hearts and we want to do all we can to support them.
“As a group we’ve been fundraising for quite a while now and after completing the Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge in September we sought out a further challenge we could set ourselves.
“We’d like to thank Gunwharf Quays for hosting the event, as well as the team at Whittaker Scaffold Ltd for providing the scaffold rig and Holiday Inn for offering us the use of their rest and welfare facilities.”
The Southsea team were aided by Chief Fire Officer Neil Odin who came down to support and couldn’t resist getting involved.
Throughout the challenge the Red Watch team were also supported with climbers from across the station’s other three watches.
After they’d seen off Kangchenjunga, K2 and Everest – the three largest mountains in the world – the crew successfully took on the three largest peaks in Britain, Ben Nevis, Snowden and Scafell Pike.
The team were sponsored by Whittaker Scaffolding Ltd who provided the structure for the climb, and supported by numerous local shops who provided much needed sustenance throughout their gruelling mission.
You can still donate to the cause on the team’s two Just Giving pages –
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/24ladderclimb
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/richard-wilson2022?fbclid=IwAR1vMeHxMtMxRGX3zQg893uhTb-b6mp3ICCt4g9p6DXGJr6kj-6cysttNrE
