Inverness woman sets herself the challenge to climb all 282 Munros

Highland News & Media

Anna Wells, from Inverness, has set herself the challenge to climb all 282 Munros this astronomical winter.

Transcript

00:00 My name is Anna Wells, I'm 34 years old and I live in Inverness.

00:05 The Munroes is a collection of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 foot and there's 282 of them.

00:13 The list has sometimes changed over the years depending on how they've been defined

00:16 and a lot of hill walkers set out to complete all of the Munroes as a challenge.

00:22 So what I wanted to try and do, and only three people have done it before,

00:26 is to climb all of them within a single winter season.

00:30 So I am trying to do it in the astronomical winter which is defined as

00:34 the time between the shortest day and the spring equinox.

00:38 So this year that was the 22nd of December to the 20th of March.

00:42 First heard about the idea of when I read a book by a guy called Martin Moran and he was the first

00:48 person who did a winter Munro round and it really inspired me.

00:52 I really like doing really big long days and then having full rest days

00:56 that just suits me better.

00:57 So I've actually, the way I planned out the rest of my days, I've only got 10 more hill days to do

01:02 but I still got another 21 days to do them in.

01:06 So it feels like quite a good safety net so I'm very optimistic about finishing on time.

01:12 The flat average is just over three a day but then obviously as soon as you do

01:17 a rest day then that's equivalent of doing six the next day.

01:21 And there's some where you can only realistically do one or two in a day.

01:26 So for example, like Benmore on the island of Mull,

01:29 it would be hard to combine another one with the ferry time.

01:33 And then there's been a lot of times where the weather's been horrendous.

01:37 Like we had so many storms in December and January so I was kind of being quite strategic

01:42 and picking off individual ones so you're up high for less time compared to when you

01:47 might spend a long time doing a ridge of nine hills.

01:51 That would be awful in bad weather.

01:52 The weather's really what's made it.

01:56 I always knew that I'd be make or break for it.

01:58 And on one hand, I also didn't want a really easy soft winter.

02:02 If there wasn't much snow and just really good mellow weather,

02:06 I wouldn't have felt like it was a proper good round.

02:08 And when I look back on the winter, it's almost like there's been phases.

02:12 So early on, I had some horrendous weather and storms but then there was a period with loads

02:18 of snow but really nice fair weather.

02:21 So it was kind of tiring from a wading through snow perspective but really nice just being

02:25 out in amazing weather.

02:26 And then there was just like tons of storms, loads of wind and rain.

02:32 So I was having to be really strategic and picking weather windows.

02:37 And to be honest, though, I've enjoyed that element of the challenge as well.

02:41 And the balance has been really nice of doing, when it's good weather, like massive long

02:47 days and then you're getting home late and you're kind of trying to quickly organise

02:52 everything and then you're up early the next day.

02:54 But then when it's been bad weather, I've had shorter days.

02:57 So then you get kind of more chilled out evenings.

03:00 And yeah, I really enjoyed the mixture of everything.

03:03 It's been great.

03:04 And it looks like the next week is quite good.

03:07 I think the thing that has scared me the most is the idea of getting injured,

03:11 like especially what happened really far through.

03:14 Because I feel like I'm quite prone to injuries.

03:17 And I have had a couple of things during the round that I spent whole days thinking,

03:25 walking around limping, thinking this is it, it's over.

03:28 But then this amazing physio was like, fixed me twice.

03:32 But yeah, I think that was one of my biggest concerns.

03:36 And then my other fear, I guess, was that I'd not enjoy it or just lose the passion

03:42 or the motivation.

03:43 So I think when I want to do something, I'm just super naturally motivated for it.

03:50 And I know I can just keep going and going.

03:52 And I almost just curiously wondered if I would keep that love and passion.

03:57 Because I knew it would be easy if I did.

03:59 But it's the sort of thing, if you didn't want to get up in the morning and go out on the hill,

04:05 I think it'd be so hard to make yourself in all that weather.

04:08 But fortunately, pretty much every day, I just woke up excited to go

04:13 and get out.

04:14 To my knowledge, only three people have done it in the winter season, and they were all men.

04:19 So it'd be cool to be the first woman to do it.

04:23 And I think, yeah, being outdoors in fresh air and amazing places, it really puts perspective

04:31 on other things in life as well.

04:33 It trivialises things.

04:34 And yeah, I've kind of always found that if anything in my personal life is difficult,

04:41 it's like it's just therapy going out into the mountains.

04:44 I think a lot of people find that.

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