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Anna Taylor completes all 100 Mountain Rock climbs in UK

British rock climber Anna Taylor has completed all 100 climbs listed in the UK reference guidebook Mountain Rock. The 24-year-old spent 53 days climbing the routes and, notably, linking them by human power, ie cycling, running, hiking.

Planetmountain

September 2022

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Anna Taylor on Outside Edge, Cwm Silyn, North Wales, while on her way to climbing 100 routes in the guidebook 'Mountain Rock'

Mathew Wright

Anna Taylor has completed one of the ultimate goals for any British mountaineer by climbing all 100 multi-pitch trad climbs listed in the UK reference guidebook Mountain Rock. Notably, the 24-year-old linked the routes over a period of 53 days by human power, which meant that she cycled, ran and hiked from one climb to the next. In total she tackled 12,402 vertical meters, cycled 1617 km and walked or ran 331 km.

While the difficulties are by no means extreme - the hardest routes are graded Very Severe - they rank among the very best and most historic climbs in the mountain regions of Great Britain. Taylor had to deal with the most disparate weather conditions, which ranged from brilliant sunshine to pouring rain and total whiteout.

Mathew Wright, Taylor's partner, accompanied her on all her climbs and provided logistical support with his van. Writing on Instagram, she stated "I’m beyond psyched to have come to the end of my UK Mountain Rock Tour. I swore never again when I finished my Classic Rock round last year, but I’m so glad I changed my mind, as the past two months have been some of the most memorable of my life. From Torridon, to the Isle of Skye, to the Cairngorms, Glencoe, Arrochar, the Isle of Arran, the Lake District, Snowdonia, and everywhere in between - it’s been a blast. The cycling days have been long and hard sometimes, but in my opinion there’s no better way to travel. The climbs have been everything you would imagine a collection of 100 classics in Britain to be - varied, exciting, occasionally terrifying in bad weather, and all extremely worthwhile."

This is believed to be the first time that the 100 routes in Mountain Rock are linked together by human power. Taylor is not new to feats of this sort and last year she completed all 83 routes in Ken Wilson's iconic Classic Rock in the same style.