It took Shona Marshall and he Kerry Blue terrier Betty just over a year to summit all 282 Munros. Now the owner and her dog have their sights set on a Full House.
The 367 day Munro round is one of fastest recorded for a dog, although another, Penny the Wonder Dog, did a 100-day continuous round with owner Graeme Morrison in 2015. It was also their second round.
The Munro Society keeps a list of dog Munroists and to date there are some 15.
Betty and Shona’s Munro round
The pair from Kinloss started on April 14, 2021 with the Munros Ben Avon and Beinn a’Bhuird in the Cairngorms. These were the only Munros they could access because Covid restrictions meant they couldn’t leave Moray. The final Munro was Am Basteir, on the Isle of Skye, on April 15, 2022.
Betty, who is seven, climbed all the Munros by herself, but she was carried up Skye’s In Pinn in a rucksack.
Shona, 58, is formerly a competitive clay pigeon shooter. She says: “I was proud to represent Scotland at three Commonwealth Games, Melbourne 2006, Delhi 2010 where I won a silver medal, and Glasgow 2014. I also competed for Team GB at World Cup, European and World Championship level from 2005 to 2014.”
Retirement – and the hill walking bug
Shona grew up in Aberdeenshire, where the hill Bennachie was a popular walk. She adds: “When I was younger, I also enjoyed camping with the Girl Guides, but I then got into clay shooting, had my family and became a farmer of Aberdeen-Angus cattle.
“It wasn’t until I turned 50 and booked myself on a trekking holiday to Everest base camp that I got bitten by the walking bug.
“Getting a dog wasn’t an option until I’d retired from competitive shooting but I felt that a dog would make sure I kept active. Longer walks that took in hills seemed like a natural progression.”
Shona’s plan to walk a fast round of Munros came from the motivation to raise money for the non-profit organisation Kerry Blue Terrier Rescue. She says: “I rehomed Betty at 15 months old from Kerry Blue Terrier Rescue. After this, in 2019, I decided to walk around Loch Ness in 24 hours as a fundraiser. I I thought it would be 75 miles, but it turned out to be 82 miles, which I did in 26 hours.
“Betty accompanied me on some of the legs of the walk so the next fundraiser idea I had was to get Betty up the In Pinn. We had the guide booked for May 2020, then Covid hit, so it was postponed until 2021.
“We did a few Munros that April to get a bit of fitness in our legs and I felt that if we could cope with the scrambling and exposure on Skye we could cope with anything the hills threw at us.”
Poor weather affected the pair’s pursuit of the Skye Munros and they did just three of the 12 but they did bag the In Pinn and raised more than £1000 for the charity.
Every week through May and June, Shona and Betty spent a day doing some of the bigger rounds of Munros, taking in multiple summits. She recalls: “By the July, I was really getting into heading out as often as I could and a friend on Facebook commented that ‘at this rate you’ll have them all done by Christmas’!
“Well, that sowed the seed and appealed to my competitive nature.”
However, Shona knew the peaks on Skye were always going to be tricky ones. Another visit to the island in October resulted in three more of the Munros being bagged but Shona knew then it would not be achievable to finish the round by the end of that year.
She says: “it was the weather again that meant we didn’t do al the Munros on Skye that we hoped to do. So, we plugged on, enjoying an open winter until the end of January when the snow and gales came. We only managed one outing in February.
“By this point, we had 39 to go but we managed some super winter walking ascents in March when, by chance, I noticed that Adrian Trendall, a guide of All Things Cuillin on Skye, had a last-minute cancellation and was asking if anyone wanted the spot.
“It was too good an opportunity to miss so off we went and managed five of the remaining six. Adrian was keen to help us complete and was available on the Easter weekend.
“We then had a deadline and the task of bagging 15 Munros in two weeks, including the three on Knoydart. It was physically punishing but the weather played ball, most of the time, and along with my neighbour Roger, were able to complete together on Good Friday, April 15, on Am Bastier aided by Adrian. By completing, we raised another £1000-plus for Kerry Blue Terrier Rescue.”
The joy of the Munros
Shona reveals she enjoys the challenge of the Munros, from planning the route through to walking it.
She adds: “Both Betty and I also enjoy seeing (and smelling) the wildlife although Betty is always on a lead attached to my waistbelt because she is hard-wired to chase and I don’t want her disappearing over a cliff edge!.
“I also like being physically fit – and hill walking is great exercise. You also learn a lot about yourself, how you can motivate yourself to keep going, how mental strength is way more important than physical strength in pushing yourself on.
“In terms of terrain, neither of us enjoy the seemingly never-ending bogs on some hills, but the scrambly bits are great fun.”
Betty has always been a keen walker. Shona says: “There is never any problem in getting Betty out for a walk. She is very well-trained to walk on the lead and she has a very efficient trot that she can keep up for miles.
“She is cautious at river crossings, always looking for stepping stones rather than plunging in, and it is humbling how she trusts me to guide her across.”
Shona has been impressed by Betty’s scrambling capabilities. She says: “The first scrambly Munro we climbed was Bla Bheinn, the day before summitting the In Pinn. I was amazed at how agile Betty was and she didn’t seem phased at all. There was a real feeling of exhilaration when we reached the trig point.”
What’s next for Shona and Betty?
As well as completing a Munro round, Shona and Betty have bagged 180 Munro Tops, 32 Corbetts, 30 Grahams and 24 Donalds (at the time of the interview).
They have also hiked the Welsh (15) and English (6) Furths, which are hills over 3000ft outwith Scotland.
They then went to Ireland to climb the 13 Furths there but a strict no dog policy in the west of Ireland meant that we only managed six.
Shona said: “It was so disappointing especially as the weather was so good when we were there. It only seemed right to bag Sleive Donard on the way past so Betty has been on top of the highest mountains in all five countries. We have also revisited 44 Munros while picking off the Tops. All of this has all been done since April 2021.”
Unless the Irish access rules change it won’t be possible for Betty to complete a Full House, the list including all the hills in the categories recorded by the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC): Munros, Munro Tops, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds. A Full House also extends to Furths, which are defined as mountains that are Munro height in England, Ireland and Wales.
Shona says: “If we complete all the others, I would go back to Ireland and climb the remaining ones in her honour. A Full House would be an incredible achievement for a dog, given their limited lifespan, and we are certainly going to try for it.
“The first priority is to complete the Munro Tops although the very windy weather so far this winter has held us back a bit, hence why we went south to make a start on the Donalds which, so far, we’ve found very enjoyable.
“Every time we go out now, we study the map to see which hills can be linked together to make for longer walks and a more efficient use of travelling further away. I now have a small campervan which means we can try to tick off as many as we can over a few days in whichever area we go to.
“The Corbett and Graham rounds will take more time to complete as they are more spread out geographically than the Munros and, by their definition, involve a lot of ascent and descent when linking a few together.
“But it’s a great way of seeing Scotland and we are so lucky to be able to enjoy responsible access. As long as Betty still wants to head out and enjoy her hill days, we’ll just keep going.”