AN adventurer has begun her ambitious journey to complete a continuous round of 100 climbing routes in a trip that will see her cycle, run and walk more than 1000 miles across Scotland, England and Wales.
Anna Taylor will tackle the journey using no ropes – a method called free solo climbing – as she makes her way up mountains across the UK.
The Cumbrian climber started her adventure last week in the Scottish Highlands, taking on the Inaccessible Pinnacle on the Isle of Skye.
Her fiance Mathew Wright will meet her at points along the route to document the trip and help recharge devices that will record her progress during a journey that will take several weeks.
The 24-year-old is following Mountain Rock’s 100 routes for aspiring climbers. The guidebook, written by climber and author Steve Broadbent, selects and describes in detail 100 of the UK’s best multi-pitch routes for the budding climber.
Last year, Taylor completed a round of the 83 routes that feature in Ken Wilson’s 1978 book Classic Rock, which was her first experience of combining bike touring with climbing.
Despite how tough she found that experience, Taylor developed an appetite for the epic and came up with her Mountain Rock plan for this summer.
She said: “When I completed my Classic Rock by bike tour last year, my first thought was to never do something like that again.
"The weather, the amount of hours sat on a bike saddle, the logistics, and the weather again, all made for what was at times a pretty gruelling and unpleasant experience.
“However, there were a lot of good moments too, and as the bad moments faded from my memory, I started to miss cycling all over the place and climbing routes in multiple remote corners of the UK.
“So, the only acceptable thing to do was to plan another cycling and climbing adventure, and thanks to the backing of Berghaus, spending more of my time doing things like this is possible.
“There are even more routes this time and the clue is in the name of the book – they’re all on mountain crags, so I’m expecting this to be even more of an assault on the legs than last year.”
