Challenge Series


Alex Staniforth Begins 100 x County High Points

On Saturday May 13, young adventurer Alex Staniforth kicked off a continuous round of the high points of every county in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - all 100 of them.

Alex Staniforth in the Lake District  © Alex Stainforth
Alex Staniforth in the Lake District
© Alex Stainforth

Starting his ClimbTheUK challenge on Shining Tor, high point of Cheshire, the 21-year-old adventurer is now attempting to walk, cycle and run nearly 5000 miles in pursuit of the rest, in a self-powered journey expected to take 10 weeks.

He is already several summits down, having ticked off the Peak District's county high points over the last couple of days.

ClimbTheUK will be almost entirely human-powered, including a kayak journey across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. The only motorised transport will be ferries to Northern Ireland and the Scottish islands. Overall, Alex will cycle 4782 miles, hike and run 484 miles, and kayak 5 miles, with a combined altitude gain of over 380,000ft (the height of 13 Mount Everests, if you're counting).

Alex, a prolific charity fundraiser, is using ClimbTheUK to support YoungMinds, a leading charity committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people.

He is also encouraging as many people as possible to join him on individual sections of the challenge.

Alex is a brand ambassador for ViewRanger, and has been using their navigational tools to plan and log the route.

Craig Wareham, CEO and co-founder of ViewRanger, said:

"Alex is taking on an epic challenge and raising money for a fantastic cause, and we're delighted he's using ViewRanger to plan, navigate, record and share all of his adventures during ClimbTheUK. We'd like to see as many people as possible... join him on different legs of the journey to show their support. It's going to be an incredibly tough challenge, but if anyone can pull it off, Alex can."

  • You can follow his progress on a live tracker here.
  • And donations can be made to YoungMinds on his JustGiving page, which is already well on the way to achieving the initial £10,000 target.

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