Our Mountain Man

Avid hill-walker and climber Jimmy Munro has put us all to shame by scaling the notoriously gruelling Aconcagua Mountain – at the age of 71!  The brave Burnside resident tackled the mountain – which has a 23,000 feet summit – in January 2010, and spent almost the whole month in South America, preparing for and undertaking the challenge.  Jimmy is no stranger to mountains, having previously embarked upon climbs of Kilimanjaro and Mount Elbrusm, in the Caucasus Mountains.  Yet even a veteran climber such as Jimmy found this particular endeavour a tough trial, due to severe weather conditions and bouts of acute mountain sickness which seen 5 members of the 14 strong party drop out before reaching the summit.  Luckily for Yorkhill Children’s Foundation, Jimmy heroically ploughed on, and as a result is well on his way to raising his target amount of £2,000 for our charity!  Jimmy relished his latest mountain adventure, and was delighted to run into fellow brave Scotsman Mark Beaumont – who was on the last stage of his epic nine-month journey from Alaska to Argentina!  Mark said, ‘I returned to base camp of Aconcagua utterly shattered to be met by them beaming and very fresh-looking Jim Munro.  It was wonderful to hear a fellow Scot on the mountain and I wished him the very best of luck as I was heading off.  However, I wasn’t very hopeful, as it has been one of the toughest years for decades on the highest mountain outside of Asia, with a very low summit rate.  What an incredible effort by Jim to complete the climb.  He has my utmost respect for what he has done – it has to be one of the most under-estimated mountains on earth.’  If you would like to contribute towards Jimmy’s total you can visit his Just Giving website here.