24hr Munro Record Attempt

21 June 2008

The longest day of the year saw an attempt by Staffordshire Moorlands’ Stephen Pyke (Spyke) to break the 24hr Munro record, held by Jon Broxap since July 1988.

Ellie and I tagged along to take some photos, provide a taxi service and give general encouragement on the hill.

Spye’s planned route of 31 Munros started at Glen Affric Lodge at 11am on Saturday 21st June. Ellie and I met him at the summit of the first hill, Mullach Fraoch-choire, then legged it along to A’Chralaig before getting dropped and heading down to the Cluanie Inn junction, before Spyke arrived after about 4.5 hours, stopping for all of 1 minute before heading off towards the South Glen Shiel Ridge.

We met him later along the ridge coming off Creag nan Damh, before a fast traverse of the Corbett Sgurr a’Bhac Chaolais and the ultra steep Sgurr na Sgine before getting dropped again and heading down to the Glen Shiel road crossing. He arrived pretty much spot his 9pm schedule, stopping for 3 or 4 minutes before crossing the river and launching up the 1,000m climb to Sgurr Fhuarain, the highest of the Five Sisters.

We baled out to the pub and slept for a bit before returning to Glen Affric, but overnight the weather had turned foul, wet and windy, so the attempt was abandoned after 21 Munros near Camban bothy at around 3am.

Some photos | Planned route of 31 Munros