City Three Peaks Challenge
Three iconic London skyscrapers. One epic descent.
On Monday 7 September 2015, a select group of daredevils took on an extraordinary challenge: abseiling from the tops of three of London's most iconic buildings — 30 St Mary Axe, The Leadenhall Building and 20 Fenchurch Street.
Better known as The Gherkin, The Cheesegrater and The Walkie-Talkie, the three buildings provided a combined descent of 1,916ft to the ground below.
The City Three Peaks Challenge was described at the time as the longest civilian abseil in history, and marked the first time the challenge had been undertaken from these three buildings. The event raised life-changing funds for The Outward Bound Trust and the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity, supporting young people and serving and former naval personnel and their families.
Following in the footsteps of The Shard
The City Three Peaks Challenge was inspired by an equally remarkable event in 2012, when a team of 40 brave men and women, led by Outward Bound's Chairman, HRH The Duke of York, abseiled more than 787ft down The Shard.
That challenge raised a transformational £2.8 million for The Outward Bound Trust and the Royal Marines Charitable Trust.
Following the unprecedented success of the Shard event, supporters of both organisations wanted to know what could possibly come next. The answer was the City Three Peaks Challenge — a challenge designed to go even higher, further and bigger than the last.
This epic descent - the longest civilian abseil in history and the first time anyone has ever abseiled down these buildings before – helped raise life-changing funds for The Outward Bound Trust and The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity: transforming the lives of young people as well as serving and former naval personnel and their families in the UK.
In 2012, a team of 40 brave men and women, led by Outward Bound’s Chairman, HRH The Duke of York, abseiled over 787ft down the side of The Shard, making history and raising a transformational £2.8m in funds for The Outward Bound Trust and The Royal Marines Charitable Trust.
Following the unprecedented success of this outstanding event, the supporters of both organisations were keen to know - what’s next? We knew if we were to follow in these prestigious footsteps, we had to make our next challenge even greater than the last; hence the City Three Peaks challenge was born.
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Testimonial
Iain Peter"In 2012 the Outward Bound Trust, working with the Royal Marines, organised an abseil descent of the Shard (the tallest building in Western Europe). All of the abseilers were novices (the event was organised to raise funds for two charities - the Outward Bound Trust and the Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund) and the building had never been abseiled before. Brian was intimately involved in all aspects of the project - the planning, selection of the equipment, fine tuning the abseil system and training the participants. Most importantly, Brian was the leader of the 30 Royal Marines who made the descent possible. On the day of the abseil Brian supervised the longest single descent (over 150m vertical meters).
The fact that the project was an astounding success (over £1,500,000 was raised) and all of the abseilers completed the descent uneventfully is testament to Brian's rare combination of skills - he understands the technical requirements of working at height in dangerous and challenging locations, he is well organised and, crucially, he is first class leader who gets the best out of his team. It was great to work with him on such a big project and I look forward to finding further opportunities for collaboration."
International Mountain Guide
Executive Director
Outward Bound International
City Three Peaks Challenge raised life-changing funds for The Outward Bound Trust and The Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity
This was the longest civilian abseil in history and the first time anyone has ever abseiled down these buildings before
The City Three Peaks were 20 Fenchurch St, 30 St Mary Axe & The Leadenhall Building
The three 'peaks' are also known as The Gherkin, The Cheesegrater and The Walkie-Talkie