Tuesday, March 19, 2024
1Irn-View: Munro bagger photographs his favourite drink at 3,000ft summits

Irn-View: Munro bagger photographs his favourite drink at 3,000ft summits

AN IRN-Bru fan has photographed his favourite drink at the summit of 30 of Scotland’s highest mountains.
Irn Bru reaches Scotland’s highest mountains
And Alan Clark is determined to get pictures of the iconic cans at the top of all 282 Munros.
The 43-year-old said he wanted to take the pictures to “give credit” to the fizzy
drink for helping him reach the peaks.
Alan, from Glasgow, has battled through snow and gale-force winds to get Irn-Bru to the top of the mountains.
As well as targeting Munros – mountains over 3,000ft – he has also planted cans on Corbetts, peaks over 2,500ft but under Munro status.
His remarkable gallery includes one of a can partly submerged by snow after a seven hour walk up a Corbett called The Brack, Argyll and Bute, last winter.
Alan has climbed high with his Irn Bru
Another features a small 49p can precariously balanced on top of a rock formation at the summit of Beinn Narnain in the Southern Highlands, with The Cobbler in the background.
Alan said: “I started climbing Munros alone and the bru was my companion – so thought I’d give it some credit.
“In all honesty, it just seemed right to have Scotland’s national drink on top of Scotland’s mountains.
“Hopefully I’ll bag all 282 eventually. It’s become too much of a thing now not to.”
Talking about one of his harder treks, Alan, a personal trainer, said: “The Brack was a seven hour Corbett in waist deep snow, and even the bru felt a chill that day.
“Luckily, as you can see from the picture, the bru had his GPS with him.
“The summit of Sgurr Alisdair, Skye’s highest point was the only Munro I haven’t been able to stand up at the top – jelly legs. The Irn-Bru is pictured there, but that’s the reason there’s not much more in the pic.”
Allan’s most recent ascent is the Meall a’Choire Leith in Perthshire, which he summitted on Friday in perfect conditions and took a selfie with the Bru on top.
Allan is not the only walker who takes wacky objects with him on his travels.
Ice cold Irn Bru
Last year, it was reported that Glaswegian joiner Michael Yuill was taking a 25kg chair around major Scottish landmarks to symbolise his recovery from a life-threatening stroke.
The 53-year-old was left in a coma, unable to walk and temporarily blind when the stroke struck six years ago.
But he amazingly recovered enough to build the tartan chair and then haul it to dozens of locations hundreds of miles apart in Scotland.
Michael, his ten-year old son Josh, and his pals take the chair on all their trips, including hiking with it up several hills in the Campsie Fells, Stirlingshire.
Other locations they have visited with it include the southern point of the West Highland Way at Milngavie, which Michael walked completely before his stroke, and Loch Katrine.
He has taken the furniture as far afield as Dunnottar Castle, a ruined medieval fortress in Stonehaven, some 130 miles from his Glasgow home, and even plans to take it to Ben Nevis.

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