A COWDENBEATH man has completed a remarkable challenge after scaling every single Munro in Scotland.

Chris Burns recently visited the Isle of Skye to conclude a journey of the Scottish hills which he has undertaken over the past four and a half years.

Having reached his mid-forties, Chris gave himself a challenge to scale to the summit of all 282 Munros.

Ranging from a minimum height of 3000 feet to the largest, Ben Nevis, at 4413 feet, his goal was to complete the tour by his 50th birthday which passed in April.

Due to the unforeseen circumstances of the Covid pandemic and the subsequent lockdown and travel restrictions, it took Chris an additional six months past his birthday to hit his final summit, Sgurr Dearg, on the Cuillin of Skye on Sunday October 17.

Prior to embarking the tour in 2017, Chris exchanged £3.00 into penny pieces which he placed in a jar located in his living room.

Taking one, or sometimes several, at a time, weekend after weekend, he left to travel to the hills hiding one of the pennies on each of the summits, leaving a few spares for contingencies.

Chris said: “In the first couple of years, it was mainly a weekend day trip with an early 3:00am rise getting back home in time at night for a pint or two.

“As the tour progressed, however, the mountains became more remote, leading to multi day trips, often camping and cooking on the summits of the peaks I was scaling.

“The tour itself saw me spending 158 days on the hill, driving more than 20,000 miles to get to mountain locations, hiking 1,800 miles in my boots and climbing an ascent/descent of approximately 550,000 feet over the duration of the tour. The equivalent of scaling Mount Everest nineteen times from sea level.”

Chris’ last task prior to leaving for Skye to complete his feat was to visit several of the local pubs in Cowdenbeath he is known to frequent to fill his hip flask with Drambuie, a nip from each to take to his final summit to toast his success in his late grandfather's dram glass.

Since returning from Skye, the Scottish Mountaineering Club, based in Edinburgh, have accepted Chris’ Munro’s feat, recording him as the 7057th person to achieve it since the first “completion” was recorded 120 years ago.