Munro completion

I can now call myself a Munroist and that’s someone who has climbed all 282 summits in the Scottish Highlands with a height over 3,000 feet!!! What a day I got for completion!! It was a blue sky day and felt like one of the hottest days of the year!! Obviously, I had celebratory cake and a glass of prosecco on the summit. During the journey, I’ve laughed, I’ve cried (that was actually on a Corbett ?), I’ve had epic adventures, chatted to sooo many other hikers and munrobaggers, visited dozens of hamlets/villages, seen gazillion amount of fantastic views and captured a multitude of shots!!!

I never imagined I would ever become a Munro Compleatist when I started 15 years ago on Ben Lomond or even 3 years ago. The rate I was going at, I thought I wouldn’t live long enough to complete a round ? However, I had an ambition to climb them all over a 20 year period since I wanted to take my time. I had the opportunity now to finish them, as I do not know what I’ll be doing in like 5 or 10 years time. After registering with the Scottish Mountaineering Club, I’ve been assigned the Munroist number 7538 which coincidentally is a combined number of my birth year (1975) and my mums birth year (1938).

Ben More (Mull) is the most common final Munro for compleatists so I’m really pleased I chose this one. It was an opportunity to have a small trip to an island I’ve never been before. Ben More via A’ Chioch ridge must be the finest way to reach the summit!! It took about 5 hrs to reach the summit so it was actually quite a strenuous hike. The ascent to the summit is steep involving easy scrambling and route finding. Since I did the horseshoe route, I had the sun in front of me for most of the hike. It was absolutely amazing on the descent with the clouds and the sunset!!!

I mostly always follow the Walkhighlands routes which often involve alternative ascents/descents and full traverses. Completing a round is no easy feat as on average it takes about 7 to 8 hrs per hike. To become a Munroist I hiked for over 1000 hrs along 1624 miles with 540,650 ft altitude gained. To put this into perspective to give an idea of the sheer scale and size. That’s hiking non-stop for 51 days, the equivalent of climbing the size of 18 and half Mount Everest’s and the distance of 17 West Highland Way’s!!! (The figures above were calculated based on the Walkhighlands walk statistics)

It took me 12 years to reach the first 36 Munros. The last 3 years of my munrobagging journey has flown past as I bagged nearly 90% of them. It’s amazing how quickly the numbers flew up at certain times since I was out often doing doubles and Multi-Munro routes. It was only just at the New Year I completed the 18 Munros on the high Cairngorms, the 55 Munros of the Cairngorms National Park and all the Munros south of the Great Glen!!! In other words, completing the Grampian Mountains ? Leaving me with less than half of Munros in Northwest Highlands and the 13 Islands Munros.

At the beginning of July, I estimated I’d finish the round at the end of August or beginning of September. So it was perfect timing to get an amazing week for a 3 day trip to Mull at the start of September!! It was about 1 hour before sunset by the time I reached Mull. What an incredible evening I got for my first time on the island!! The following day I was aiming to complete a round of Munros so it was all looking so promising!!

I drove to Salen first and I could see the sun quite low in the sky. Then I headed Southwest towards Ben More to find a place to wild camp. The sunset appeared and it was sensational!!! Luckily there were lots of places to camp at the roadside and conveniently just next to Loch na Keal. I got there quite late so never had enough time to pitch my tent and relax while watching the sunset. So I just walked around the shore taking some pictures until the sun dipped underneath the hills.

The journey was stressful as everything was going wrong. Such as having issues with my rented car, issues with booking car with ferry, delays on the A82, couldn’t find where to park my car for the ferry. My car was 2nd last on the ferry so I was lucky to get on it. Tuesday was the best day for hiking so I was really wanted to get to Mull on the Monday.

I experienced depression for years and had symptoms such as constant sadness, losing interest in life, loneliness and suicidal thoughts. Being in the outdoors has helped to keep my mind positive. My life has improved because of my passion for photography and being part of a hiking Instagram community has helped tremendously!! The outdoors is such a great remedy for mental health problems and I cannot stress enough how important it is to go for a walk or cycle along the countryside, even for 30 mins, in a regular basis. Keeps you lean, builds strength, increases endurance and stamina, gains confidence, raises self-esteem, reduces depression and stress. Also encourages you to lead a healthy lifestyle which improves the quality of your life.

Out of the 282 Munros, 256 have been solo. I didn’t enjoy being a solo hiker at the first but I soon seen the many benefits. Such as deciding when and where to go, walking at your own pace, no disagreements and you get all the views to yourself ? Though it can be lonely when in some of the remotest places so hope to share some of my adventures in the next round!!

It’s such an honour becoming a Munroist!! It must be one of the biggest accomplishments I’ve achieved in my life!! I have sooo many memories in the last 3 years and it’s amazing to think that I’ve summited all 282 Munros!! I’m very grateful and feeling very lucky to have had so many days with views!! My Munrobagging journey has been an incredible experience and so looking forward to the 2nd round!!!

Some of my most memorable hikes were:-

• My 100th Munro on the narrowest ridge in mainland Britain, Aonach Eagach!!
• Bagging my 200th on An Teallach which is arguably Scotland’s most beautiful mountain!!
• The 250th on Liathach which is regarded by some as the finest mountain in the Scottish Highlands!!
• 1 week hiking/camping trip in the Far North of Scotland to tick off the 5 most northerly Munros. I was lucky enough to witness a cloud inversion on Ben Hope, the most northerly of the Munros!! This is a once in a lifetime experience!!!
• Other epic hillwalking days were on Bidean nam Bian, Ben Nevis via CMD Arête, 5 Sisters of Kintail, Ben Alder and the big three Torridonian mountains.

All my hikes were tackled in 1 day with a backpack to prevent from camping on the mountain and taking a rucksack. Although 2 hikes in Knoydart and 1 hike in the Fisherfield forest required a full rucksack to reach the start of the route. There were many times a mountain bike was needed for travelling into some the remotest places in Scotland!! It was such a blessing that I began wild camping in 2021 as this definitely made hiking in the Northwest Highlands possible for me. As I’d be shattered after long days on the hills since many of the hikes lasted 8 to 12 hrs and as long as 16 hrs. Fairly frequently it was too long to drive there and back in the same day.

Just before my final Munro, I ticked off the 11 Munros of Black Cuillin which is the most complex and challenging mountain to climb in the British Isles!! This included Scotland’s most difficult Munro, the Inaccessible Pinnacle which requires a graded rock climb and an abseil. The In Pinn eluded Sir Hugh Munro, the mountaineer who wrote a list of mountains in Scotland over 3,000 ft and called them Munro’s. So I actually succeeded, as well as many other hikers, what a British hillwalking legend failed at ? It was actually my first ever rock climb, grade 3 scramble and abseil though I thoroughly enjoyed the 4 days in the Cuillin with a hiking guide.

Feel free to have a look around www.fraser-king.com to see the other fabulous pictures I’ve captured on the hikes and during the journey. Also, please check my Instagram post to see all the fantastic comments I received when finishing the round!!

Some more pictures of the epic adventure