Scottish women’s team bag Munro relay first on Mull

Scottish women’s team bag Munro relay fi rst on Mull

In Pinn was one of several Munros bagged on the Isle of Skye.

A group of women claimed a Scottish mountains fi rst on Ben More on Mull. The team – all aged over 40 – bagged the fi nal summit in a list of 282 of the country’s tallest peaks on Thursday June 30. It took the Veteran Women’s Munro Relay just 26 days to complete the continuous, self-propelled journey which started on Beinn Sgritheall in the north-west Highlands on June 4. It is believed the feat has never before been completed by an all-female team. The core of 10 women, with others joining for shorter spells, ran, walked, cycled and kayaked to all the Munros, defi ned as mountains in Scotland with a summit of at least 3,000ft (914.4m). In total, the women have journeyed more than 1,750 miles (2,800km) by land and on water and climbed 482,300ft (147,000m) - more than 16 times the height of Mount Everest. They have reached mountains as far afi eld as Ben Hope in the north of Scotland, Ben Lomond in the southern Highlands, Mount Keen to the east and Sgurr na Banachdich, on the island of Skye, in the west. The team ticked off famously airy ridges, including the Cuillin on Skye and Aonach Eagach in Glen Coe. The women faced weather extremes, from one of the hottest days of the year in early June to windchill temperatures of -4C, and many days of torrential rain and low cloud. Bad weather halted the relay for threeand-a-half days in total. The relay has been raising awareness and funds for the charity Free to Run - freetorun.org - which aims to empower women and girls through sport. Fran Loots, of Comrie, Perth and Kinross, came up with the idea as a way to ‘celebrate what women can do’. The summit of the fi nal Munro, Ben More on the Isle of Mull, was reached at 9.53pm on Thursday June 30 by a dozen women. The total time for the Munro relay was 26 days, 18 hours and three minutes.