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On top of the world, 82-year-old who’s just conquered all 282 Munros

From heartache of his beloved wife’s Alzheimer’s came a remarkable odyssey

By PATRICIA KANE AT THE TOP OF CAIRN GORM

HE has walked 2,000 miles and scaled the equivalent of Everest 18 times, but there was never any doubt in 82-year-old Nick Gardner’s mind that he would finish his epic challenge.

And yesterday, having decided more than two years ago to climb every one of Scotland’s 282 Munros – peaks above 3,000ft – in a maximum of 1,200 days, he completed his final one with 400 days to spare.

It’s a challenge that would leave many even a quarter of his age quaking in their boots but it was driven by his wife Janet’s diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease and her admission to a nursing home before his 80th birthday.

His astonishing efforts have raised more than £64,000, so far, for Alzheimer’s Scotland and the Royal Osteoporosis Society.

Gazing out over the vast expanse of wilderness below him from the top of Cairn Gorm, the sixth highest mountain in the UK at 4,084ft, the skirl of the bagpipes from a lone piper playing to mark the occasion, he said: ‘I’m just an old man who loves wandering in the mountains and I can’t believe this is happening. I’m like a little boy coming up to Christmas, I’m so excited at what I’ve achieved.

‘There’s no way I’m stopping now, though, I’ll carry on until I’m dead. Something else will have to stop me first, like a medical condition. My one concession is that I’m not going to climb to the same intensity after this weekend. I’ve pushed it lately and my knees are aching and my legs are very tired at the moment.’

Heartbroken and lonely without his partner of 50 years, who also suffers from osteoporosis, he knew he had to find a reason to go on or be consumed by the depression he was beginning to feel.

Yesterday’s achievement is all the more poignant because his 84year-old wife, a retired teacher who he still visits every day when he’s not climbing mountains, no longer remembers him let alone

We were so ideally suited and knew we were very lucky

knows the achievement he has just pulled off.

Such is the impact his inspiring efforts have also had on regular hillwalkers that around 200 joined up with family and friends to accompany him on his final ascent to show their support for the bearded octogenarian they have met out in all weathers and on all terrains.

There was even a guard of honour – their walking poles held aloft – as he reached the summit to applause.

His quest has seen him complete one of Britain’s most notorious mountaineering challenges, the mighty Cuillin ridge of 11 back-to-back peaks on Skye, including the most difficult of all: the Inaccessible Pinnacle, a sheer, 50ft high jagged fin which has to be scaled with ropes to claim the Munro.

Many hillwalkers never become ‘compleatists’ – the term for someone who has ‘bagged’ all the Munros – because their fear of attempting the ‘InPin’ proves too much.

For Mr Gardner, it is one of his more memorable achievements, during which he camped out under the stars at 3,255ft to make sure he could complete his traverse of the range in a single take. He said: ‘I have a lot of residual fitness because I did a lot of rock climbing when I was younger. But the ridge is very exposed and we did have bad weather and, of course, I’m old and have lost confidence.

‘I’ve had a few little falls on other mountains, mainly slipping on boggy ground, but it’s been great fun.’

For him, however, despite travelling the length and breadth of Scotland on his challenge, all roads lead back to Gairloch, where his heart lies. He moved to the Wester Ross

village 30 years ago with his wife to start a new life and she now lives there in a residential home, half a mile from their ten-acre croft.

He said: ‘We were so ideally suited. We never argued and we knew we were very lucky. Alzheimer’s is a very cruel illness and she’s no longer the person I fell in love with. She’s gone, it’s just a shell that’s there. She doesn’t know me. I visit her every day, I sit with her and hold her hand. It’s heartbreaking.’

The couple, who married in 1987 but had been together for 12 years before that after their first marriages ended, quit suburban life in Stockport, Cheshire, for a quieter existence in Wester Ross in 1992.

But in March 2018 Janet was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and, within six months, she had deteriorated so much she had to go into 24-hour care. Mr Gardner, a retired building contractor, said: ‘I’d been looking after her myself but it was exhausting and one person can’t do it.

‘When she had to go into a home, I felt guilty and absolutely lost. I’ve had to get a completely new life going. I knew I was heading for some mental health condition and I thought I’ve got to get a challenge quickly. ‘Coming up for 80, I realised it was a good opportunity to do all the Munros. At the time I didn’t think that would be so unusual but the response has been incredible.’

He is now so well recognised on the mountains that strangers shout his name. He said: ‘I was climbing the three Glen Affric peaks and this chap recognised me before we spoke. He said to me, “Nick, if you don’t mind my language, you are a f ***** g legend”. I felt elated and we fell about laughing.’

The Duchess of Cornwall is also a supporter of his efforts and, last October, he took a temporary break from his climbing to have afternoon tea with her at Clarence House to mark World Osteoporosis Day.

He said: ‘It meant a lot to me that the Duchess of Cornwall wished me well in my challenge.’

Around 300,000 people in Scotland live with osteoporosis and more than 3.5 million across the UK. More than 520,000 people in the UK have dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease, a figure that is set to rise.

Mr Gardner’s daughter, Sally McKenzie, said: ‘The last few years have been a really difficult time for Dad, but his decision to take on this challenge has been worthwhile on many levels. I am so proud of his perseverance and dedication.’

He already has plenty of offers for his next challenge, likely to be America’s Appalachian Trail, which crosses 14 states from Georgia to Maine and is his ‘pipe dream’.

He said: ‘I want to do something that’s not as difficult as the Munros. Being pragmatic, however, Janet will have had to pass away before I attempt anything like that.’

Donations can be made to: www.justgiving.com/team/nicksmunro-challenge

Janet is no longer the person I fell in love with, she’s gone

IF YOU wake in the night and hear an intruder downstairs, you must assume he’s armed. And he will kill you if you interfere.’ The friendly police captain was answering my question about a flurry of home invasions nearby, in which a father had been shot dead, defending his family. This was Texas a few years ago, where my wife and I were new arrivals from London. We were settling in fast – the Lone Star State does everything big, especially warm welcomes – but there were some sizeable cultural adjustments to make, too.

Guns, for example. They’re part of everyday life in Texas and it’s bad form to get excited about them, pro or anti, especially as a newcomer. There were more immediate dangers, such as navigating the 26-lane Katy freeway which for the first few weeks seemed by far the most likely cause of sudden death. Anyway, I thought, what’s the fuss? I had encountered plenty of weapons in my 15 years’ military service plus another eight years around armed Royal bodyguards. In my view, guns belonged at work, not at home, and I intended to keep it that way.

Until the police captain explained about the local burglars and their notoriously quick trigger fingers.

‘Are you saying I have to have a gun?’

‘I’m saying you have to have a plan.’

So instead of joining America’s 80million gun-owners, we make a plan. We buy special lights and locks and designate a safe room to which we will retreat in an emergency. All very reassuring. Until, a couple of months later, in the middle of the night, the burglar alarm goes off. For a few seconds, my dozy brain struggles to identify the sudden awful noise. Then, like a bucket of ice, reality hits me. Bloody hell. Certain death is inside the house and heading for the stairs…

Does the plan smoothly kick in? Do we calmly head for the safe room and wait for the police? Do we heck!

Desperate not to die cowering in bed, I jump up and start scrabbling blindly for trousers. Meanwhile, my wife frantically tries (and fails) to remember the code word for the burglar alarm company which has promptly phoned to ask if we are OK.

Are we OK? There is only one way to find out. I grab a heavy torch from my bedside table and stride manfully to the bedroom door, ready to confront the unknown. As I reach the landing, the alarm stops ringing. In the sudden silence, I strain my ears for any sound from downstairs.

Nothing. On bare feet I creep down a couple of steps, fear spreading through my guts.

‘I have a gun!’

I hear myself croak the words and desperately wish they were true. The torch in my hand is a joke. What am I going to do – guide the invader out of the house like a cinema usherette?

Luckily for me, no crack-crazed murderers lay in wait. Instead, I find a window that has slipped off its latch, triggering the alarm.

Cue relief, embarrassed laughter and so back to bed, if not to sleep. I now understand that, in extremis, a handful of cold steel can be a great comfort. Torches just don’t hack it.

So, over the next few days, helped by a business colleague who also happens to be a retired FBI agent, I go shopping for a gun. ‘Remember,’ he says, ‘you’re not buying a gun because you hate what’s outside your door but because you love what’s inside.’

Still, it feels strange, next to campers buying picnic stoves and anglers choosing fishing tackle, to be browsing glass-fronted cases of artfully arranged handguns.

It helps explain US gun attitudes to realise that for many owners, this is just another retail transaction, albeit one with the seductive tech thrills of a high-end watch boutique or Apple store. It’s undeniably a sensory experience, too: the sleek minimalism of a Glock, the satisfying heft of a Sig Sauer, the blunt utility of a Smith & Wesson (‘the enclosed hammer design means it won’t snag on your pocket’). From there, it’s but a step to the heavy metal long guns.

Wrenching myself away from the endless buffet of lethal hardware, I recognise that I am on the brink of becoming a participant in the whole, endless, unsolvable trauma of America

and guns. Will I be part of the solution, or just another problem statistic? To British eyes, nothing is more baffling about my new homeland than America’s love affair with firearms. Random street killings and mall shootings merge with school massacres in an apparently endless butcher’s bill of national self-harm.

Some statistics are unambiguous: there are 400million guns in the US – an average of 1.25 per person. By contrast, in Canada it’s 0.34 per person, and just 0.05 in the UK. Tellingly, almost half of America’s annual toll of 45,000 gun deaths are suicides.

It’s big business, too. In 2021, the firearm and ammunition industry contributed £58 billion to the US economy. The right to bear arms is deeply rooted in America’s revolutionary soul. And when the fight for liberty was won, the fight for the frontier took its place as the unquestioned pretext for universal gunownership. The Wild West, a cultural homeland for the boomer generation especially, has given way to the badlands of lawless city streets where the handgun rules. Gun-ownership is

Handguns in the store are artfully arranged alongside some camping stoves

Firearms in America are like a religion. Debate falls on deaf ears

a freedom guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution – a document which, along with the Declaration of Independence, has the status of sacred writ.

‘A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’

To complicate matters, the Amendment says nothing about the type of ‘arms’ the citizen is entitled to bear. Its applicability to modern weapons, immeasurably more deadly than their 18th Century forebears, would have Jefferson himself scratching his head.

But what, in turn, would he make of the opposite argument which, in the name of ‘gun safety’, would effectively disarm legal owners while leaving criminals as dangerous as ever?

Ronald Reagan, who survived an assassination attempt, addressed the point directly: ‘You won’t get gun control by disarming law-abiding citizens. There’s only one way to get real gun control: disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up and if you don’t actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time…’

So US Presidents and legislators must try to reconcile the 18th Century Enlightenment ideal of unrestricted individual responsibility with the modern reality of almost weekly mass-shooting outrages. Creating wise and effective laws on such a divisive issue has never proved easy given all the necessary constraints of a vociferous, polarised democracy.

The great African-American social reformer Frederick Douglass neatly summed up the internal contradictions of the American system: ‘A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.’

That leaves Presidents to verbalise the national yearning for something better, often while fulfilling their sad task as mourner-in-chief at the latest mass killing.

A recent, emotional example was Joe Biden’s lament at the horrific Uvalde school shooting in Texas this summer: ‘I’ve been in this fight for a long time. I know how hard it is but

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