Challenges!

The best-known individual challenge in the Scottish hills is the completion of the 282 Munros, all the mountains above 3000 feet, and doing this is commonly called ‘bagging’. Most of them are ‘relatively’ straightforward hill walks but sometimes quite ‘airy’ and sometimes quite remote. The only one requiring real climbing experience is the Inaccessible Pinnacle on Skye and many people use a qualified guide for this one. Whilst Perthshire Treks isn’t qualified to take you up this Munro we can take you up most of the other ones in Scotland so why not try with Carn Liath or Schiehallion – relatively easy and accessible Munros. Or you can set a challenge of cycling round a big mountain, such as Ben Wyvis, on paths, tracks and roads!

The Skye Ridge or the trio of Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Scafell in 24 hours on the other hand is a race against time. The Skye Ridge you can do on your own or with friends and a bit of support but you need to have some climbing and abseiling experience. The ‘three peaks’ challenge is often an organised event which is done for charity as you need a willing driver or two to do the journey from Scotland to Wales to England. There are lots of other similar challenges including the long-distance routes, the Cape Wrath Trail from Fort William to Cape Wrath being very popular at present.

The TGO challenge happens every year in May and the idea is to journey (on foot) from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast. You can camp or stay in a B&B but you must walk it all. This challenge is very addictive and we have friends who have completed their tenth crossing. This is a challenge you have to enter and register for and you may or may not be accepted. It isn’t competitive; you simply have to complete your chosen route within 14 days.

Something like the OMM (the Original Mountain Marathon) is a large hill walking and orienteering event in teams of two in the autumn. It is competitive but you don’t have to try and win, but you do have to complete the first day in a reasonable time otherwise you aren’t allowed to start the second day (you wild camp in between the two days). It is in the Lake District this year but you don’t see the actual route until the start. It has been described as “a weekend of enjoyable suffering”.

After that there are the more extreme events targeted at hill runners and tri-athletes with lots of options in between. Some of our friends have recently completed the Cape Wrath Ultra which is a 400km, 8 day ultra-running expedition. Then there are the ultra-triathlons and iron man events but we’ll leave you to check them out!! A good starting point for the events you can enter (and there is normally an entrance fee) is www.sientries.co.uk. This lists everything from local orienteering events for beginners to the ultra competitive events described above. There are 16 events listed for the 10 August alone for example.

Do we do challenges? Well to a limited extent, we have completed our Munros and are well on the way to completing the Corbetts (the slightly smaller hills in Scotland). We also orienteer locally but Brenda usually comes last as she doesn’t do ‘run’, but we prefer personal rather than competitive challenges!