A Bannockburn man has completed a monster challenge hiking up Scotland’s highest mountain – carrying 35 kilograms of weight – to raise money in memory of a tragic pal who died from a sudden heart attack the day after his 30th birthday.
Paul Jamieson took on the gruelling challenge of scaling Ben Nevis, Lochaber, at the weekend in a bid to raise the funds for Heart Research UK.
He wanted to raise funds for the charity after being devastated by the death of a close friend last year.
Solicitor Paul turned 30 himself last month and had been set to take on the stamina-sapping walk earlier, but had to postpone it after testing positive for Covid.
He finally pulled on his walking boots on Saturday to undertake the taxing journey.
Paul told the Observer: “I thought about the challenge when I started hillwalking as things started opening up in summer 2020.
“I’m still by no means an experienced hillwalker. I wanted to do something different as I knew that many people hillwalk, although all hillwalks are impressive.
“At the time, I weighed 70kg so 35kg was half my own bodyweight. I’ve gained a little bit of weight since.
“I wanted to do something charitable for my 30th.
“Everyone has a big party or something, and I didn’t want to do that.
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“I wanted to do something I could look back on and be proud of. And when my friend died last year, many people told me to live my life for him, and some form of hillwalking was suggested as I was hillwalking for nearly a year by that time.
“That’s why I told myself, whenever it got really tough and I was regretting doing it, my friend doesn’t get to do anything like this anymore.
“He doesn’t get to experience anything anymore, good or bad. So who am I to complain?”
Paul has previously reached the summits of Dumyat, Ben A’an, Ben Lomond, Ben Vorlich, Schiehallion, The Cobbler, Conic Hill, and Ben Cleuch while carrying the extra weight.
He went on: “I’ve done Ben Nevis twice before, normally taking three-and-a-half hours up. But this time it took me just over six hours to carry those blasted weights up.
“I don’t know if it was a combination of doing Ben Cleuch as early as Wednesday, the weather or just the sheer size of Ben Nevis, but that was definitely the most difficult physical challenge I’ve ever done.
“For the first time ever, I had to leave my weights at the top, in the hut. I guess I’ll be back up Ben Nevis soon enough to retrieve as many of them as I can.
“It took me another three hours to get down at that point, which is average for me.
“I’m not afraid to say that I got quite emotional with the weather, the pain in my back, shoulders and calves, and was nearly crying at times and tempted to give up.
“But I had to carry the weights up to the top, as I promised so I pushed on.”
Paul was accompanied on the exhausting mission by pals Brian Sellick and Yuriy Petrov and he thanked them for their “unbelievable support and friendship”, adding: “Both really pushed me and Brian even came back down from the peak to help push me to the peak and then waited whilst I rested for a few minutes.”
To donate to Paul’s effort, click here.
