Cairngorm Parkrun

Even by the standards of a 2020 summer that kept producing both interesting new hill rounds and exciting new times for established ones, Ian Stewart's splendidly-titled 'Cairngorm Parkrun' is something a little bit different... not your normal flat(tish) 5km but a 419km journey with 20,559m of ascent round the 58 Munros of the Cairngorms National Park taking 141 hours 54 minutes to complete!

As a whole, it's far too big to describe here, but we must note that Ian settled on a point-to-point route starting with Mount Keen and finishing with Cairngorm after logically rejecting a closed loop, and ran as a fundraiser for incapacitated mountain guide and friend Dave Hollinger. For those wanting to know more, he has online articles describing both planning and running of the challenge, and it's also featured in Ally Beaven's entertaining new book Broken about the record-breaking summer of 2020.

Will it ever become a popular continuous route? We doubt it! Will some other hardcore, ultra-inclined hill runner give it a go sometime or is it destined to remain a glorious one-off? Who knows, but it's a fantastic, inspiring achievement which we quite simply have to record either way!

Page new 27th December 2020