Athletes undertaking the ARCHIE’S Mountain Challenge are truly pushing themselves to the limit, running through the night and getting up at dawn to tackle the monster peaks.
Dr Paul Fettes, the man behind the challenge an attempt to scale every mountain in Scotland measuring more than 1,000 metres said Wednesday was a big day.
“We’ve not been hanging around!” he said. “Priorities are staying alive and not getting hypothermia.”
Dr Ben Ulyatt said: “Kirsty and Katherine set off at 6am on Wednesday from Glen Affric by bike before going over two ARCHIEs, including a difficult snow-covered ridge.
“It was an impressive if exhausting 10 hours in the hills.
“Gary and Nick then tackled hills between Affric and Clunie at a rapid pace, getting in around 10pm. Paul and I then went up the last two ARCHIEs in the dark over steep, snowy ridges, coming off the top at midnight, back to base by 1am Thursday morning.”
There’s no rest for the wicked and at 4am on Thursday, Colin Donald and Andrew Forrester set off at 4am up the Five Sisters of Kintail.
Paul said: “We’ll get the two outliers we missed by Mullardoch because of conditions, as well as Bheinn Fhada and the Saddle.”
Having stayed in a camper van with no phone signal for a couple of days, the plan was to stay at Shiel Bridge campsite last night, where the team will enjoy the first showers since they left Torridon!