A 24-year-old Cumbrian woman has completed an epic mountaineering challenge in 53 days.
Anna Taylor, 24, of Windermere, completed the first human-powered continuous round of 100 UK mountain climbs featured in guidebook Mountain Rock by Steve Broadbent.
She cycled, ran and walked almost 2,000km to reach the routes described in the book in Scotland, England and Wales. She tackled the majority of climbs without ropes.
Anna’s Mountain Rock tour was backed by British outdoor company Berghaus, and she used some of the brand’s latest specialist kit on the trip, during which she faced a variety of challenging weather conditions.
Last year, Anna completed a round of the 83 routes featured in Ken Wilson’s 1978 book Classic Rock and it gave her an appetite for more and she devised her Mountain Rock plan over the winter. During her tour, Anna cycled over 1,600km, with over 12,000m of elevation, and ran or walked almost 340km.
Anna is an experienced climber and although tackling many of the routes without ropes added risk, it also reduced the time that she spent on each of them, allowing her to make quick progress. Anna’s fiancé Mathew Wright provided support along the way.
Anna said: “Being the first person to complete a human-powered link up of Mountain Rock is something that I’m really proud of, and I certainly hope that I won’t be the last to do it! It’s been a long, hard, and at times scary journey, but it’s allowed me to travel to parts of the UK that I never would have otherwise seen, and challenges like this always remind me just how much of an adventure you can have on our little island, without having to fly off overseas!”
