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