AN Arran schoolboy will tackle the monumental challenge of climbing 30 Munros over four days in a fund-raising effort in memory of his father who passed away when the teenager was just 13.

Andrew Bunting, 16, will take on the trek, part of a wider aim of running 60 Munros, in mid May – only days after the conclusion of his exams.

He is taking a route which is 170 kilometres long, and covers an elevation greater than 14,000 metres over the course of the four days – comparable to the height of Mount Everest and Mont Blanc combined.

Andrew told the Herald: “In short, it’ll be very difficult. The combination of distance and elevation gain/loss each day makes it physically exhausting on the body and mentally draining.

“The other difficulty is the diet, I expect to burn around 6,000 calories each day, so it’ll be hard to get some of those calories back in and get some for the next day.

“Most weekends, and whenever I have a chance, it’s been back-to-back 20-30k runs on the Arran hills as well as weight training and stretching.

“I think I have done Goatfell several times since training started.”

Andrew is doing all of this in memory of his late father, who passed away when Andrew was only 13. He will be fund-raising for the Martin Moran Foundation.

He intends to finish his wider challenge, taking on 60 Munros, on his dad’s birthday in July.

On what this cause means to him, he said: “My family has always been passionate about the outdoors and it’s something that really helped me dealing with my dad’s passing, so a charity that promotes people my age and helps them get out there is 100 per cent going to have our support.

“I’d like to thank my mum for letting me to do what I want to do and achieve; my grandpa, who is kindly going to do the crewing during the run; Arran Active, a local outdoor shop who are generously helping with equipment; and of course the Martin Moran Foundation, who have been very helpful and supportive during the planning stages of the event.”

Andrew’s dedication has been incredible, combining his training with exam revision.

He added: “Most of my training has been done after studying, so I have been going out around 5pm for a 20k+ hill run then arriving home with the head torch on to stretch off and eat.

“Running motivated my studying like a reward really for the day’s work – obviously I was going out drained which really improved my endurance.”

You can follow Andrew’s journey on his Instagram page “@_outdoor_andy_” and his Just Giving page is available on www.justgiving.com/fund-raising/andybunting30munros