Summit Special

Celtic couple climb one of Euripe's highest mountains to raise money for the Kano Foundation.

CELTIC fans John Reid and Lorraine Money had never climbed a fence together, never mind a mountain, but that didn’t stop them from deciding to scale one of Europe’s highest peaks – all in the name of charity.

At 15,776ft, Mont Blanc stands head and shoulders above its jaggy companions in the Alps skyline and offers an extremely testing six-day trek to any climbers who dare attempt to tackle its slopes, but that didn’t deter John and Lorraine from taking on the challenge and raising more than £14,000 for the Kano Foundation earlier this summer.

With no previous mountaineering experience under either of their belts, the ‘White Mountain’ represented an ambitious task as the couple’s first climb but after training in the Munros of Scotland for the best part of a year, the pair felt confident they could last the pace. And they did just that, reaching close to the top of the mountain on June 20 this year. 

However, their journey to the summit was cut short when 90kmph winds made the final 500-metre trek impassable, and it looked like their dream was over.

In an exclusive interview with the Celtic View, John said: “We got 500m from the summit but there were 90km winds and it was very physically demanding. We had never done any climbing at all so it was pretty epic because we were novices.

“There was an avalanche on the day of coming down and one of the guides lost his life. It’s sad but that’s normal as it’s a dangerous environment. There is a risk factor but you know that before you go, but if you thought like that you wouldn’t get out the house in the morning.”

Never ones to back down, however, the couple returned to the small town of Chamonix in France at the foot of the Alps a week later after securing a new guide, and took on the challenge again, without telling anyone.