It’s all uphill for fundraiser Cat

A Kirkwall woman is getting ready to set off on a mountainous challenge tomorrow, attempting to climb the height of Mount Everest by walking up Wideford Hill, on the outskirts of Kirkwall, multiple times within a week.

Cat Browne will have to walk up Wideford at least six times a day to reach her goal.

A Lieutenant with the Kirkwall Detachment of the 1 Highlanders army cadets, Cat is taking on the challenge to raise funds for the cadets as well as the armed forces charity SSAFA, which have both had their normal fundraising opportunities curtailed by the pandemic.

She has a fundraising page here.

One of inspirations for the challenge was she had been planning a trip to Everest Base Camp this year, which was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cat will also have a very memorable birthday as she turns 36 during the challenge.

Wideford Hill is approximately 225 metres and Everest is 8848 metres high, meaning that, starting from sea level, Cat will have to walk up Wideford 40 times in total.

“I suspect by lunch time on day one I might start to wonder why I’m doing it,” she laughed, “getting up on day two might be hard but I’m going the rest of the week should be okay.”

“I’ve allowed for about an hour for each ascent, so expect to walk ten to twelve hours a day up and down, though it will likely be under that and will alter with weather and fatigue.”

Asked where the idea for the challenge came from, she said: “I’ve done a few fitness challenges during lockdown and the battery commander sent me a link saying, why don’t you have a go at one of these online ones’ and SAFFA were running one, to do the height of Everest over 12 weeks. I had wondered how many times you would have to do Wideford for that and thought, ‘I’ve got holidays that I’ve got to use so why not do it in a week.'”