The Highlands are there to be explored, so get out and make your own trail

As the Scottish summer reaches its peak, there will be a collective dusting-off of hiking boots around the country.

For many, the boots have already received their fair share of use so far this year with access to the majority of the Scottish mountains, weather permitting, safe all year round.

But what about those who are looking for a challenge? Those thrill-seekers that look to do a bit more than just walk and explore the Scottish countryside? That's where Run the Highlands comes in.

A relatively new expedition based in Fort William, this mixed team made up of mountain leaders, runners and adventure coaches look to provide just that and more.

With 282 Munros - mountains over 3,000feet high - in Scotland, we have an abundance of peaks to climb and are spoiled with our wild countryside. As of October last year, 7,581 people had reached the summit on every single one of them.

But for adventurist Jon Fearne, part of the Run the Highlands team, more than just exploring the Scottish countryside applies.

Having been brought up on the south coast of England before moving to the Chamonix Valley later in life, overlooked by Mont Blanc, the 47-year-old is now looking to encourage more people from south of the border to explore more, rather than sticking to the 'signposted trails of the Lake District'.

'Run the Highlands is really new,' he says. 'It's just been four of us from knowing each other from different circles. We thought: "Why don't we do something that can get more people to come up to the Highlands from south of the (Hadrian's) wall and enjoy the trails and the mountains from a running perspective?"

'One thing we've learned is that south of the wall, people have very little understanding of being able to run in the Scottish Highlands.

'If you go to the Lake District, for example, everywhere is signposted and has a trail. But when you come to the Highlands, there's very little signage so you have to make your own trail.

'People say that navigation is a barrier, but we wanted to set up courses to help remove those barriers and understand that you can still run, you can still explore, and you just need to put a bit more thought into it.

'This is our first year of Run the Highlands. There's four of us running this - Anna Danby is a summer and winter mountain guide, Sally Hudson a summer and winter mountain guide, George Fisher has just done his mountain leader course and won the Sky Runner series in the UK last year. So between the four of us, we think we can make a very good package that is open to everyone.' With a background in outdoor education, surfing, kayaking and sports science, as well as training people to tackle endurance adventures of their own, Fearne has a unique understanding of what is required to tackle the Scottish Highlands.

Since being diagnosed with hyperactivity at the age of nine, now understood to be Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Fearne insists that the idea of adventure is something that no one should be afraid to tackle, despite the obvious challenges it presents.

'As a youngster, I was diagnosed with hyperactivity, but that's now ADHD, so my school put me into sports super early and it has been a coping mechanism for me since I was about nine,' he says. 'So it's been a way of burning energy. Then I just got more interested in the challenge aspect of being pushed further, pushed harder.

'It has been a coping mechanism to start with that was pushed on to me by a couple of teachers, which I'm forever grateful for as I know a lot of people don't get that chance, and it's led to a passion for being outdoors and playing in the mountains.

'I've been doing this for about 28 years now. The endurance line, predominantly, and that kind of drifted back into the adventure side of things and that's where it just sort of stayed, a mixture of ultra and endurance adventure athletes.

'I've done multiple ironman races, I used to race those semi-professionally.. I think I'm still the only athlete to complete both TransAlp and TransAlpine, one is running across the Alps and the other is mountain biking across them.

'For me now, I don't really compete so much, I just pick an adventure and do it.' Now living on the west coast of Scotland, Fearne has settled down and begun to put down roots. But this hasn't always been the case. Picking an adventure has always been something he has done without hesitation.

Having competed in Ironman events, he took his fitness to the next level when competing in the Trans Alp and TransAlpine events. But even that wasn't enough.

'A while back, I picked the Troll Peninsula in Iceland in winter, on skis, so I went out there with a friend, went exploring, pitched a tent and skied different mountains,' he adds.

'I lived in Chamonix for three years where skiing off of 4,000m peaks was my absolute joy, which was my go-to activity whilst I trained people for other things.

'The Alps races are seven days of going through Germany, Italy and Switzerland I think it was. Like an ultra-marathon but with over 2,000m of climbing..' Having a background in these sorts of challenges is one thing, but Fearne admits that the boundaries could still be pushed further with Run the Highlands.

Right now, the focus is on teaching and encouraging people to explore the outdoors, test their limits and do it all safely. But, long-term, there may be the option to add more survivalist aspects into their adventures.

'We do a mix of events. You've got the full weekend, we do a five-day course, but we also do some bespoke ones as well,' he says. We've even got some locals who reach out to us that ask if they can just come and do one day.

'There's no survival aspects of it - that would be another level of this where we could go, like a lot of the Scandinavians have done. We teach the basics of navigation in the Scottish mountains, given we have guides with us. It's predominantly focused on how you get around in the mountains and how you can actually run in the mountains; what kind of equipment you need to be taking, getting people to understand that it's not all running, that most of the uphill parts is walking and route finding.

'We teach people on how to engage with poles to help you, how you attack ascending as a lot of people feel fine getting up something but it's getting back down that's the problem. So we try to encompass all of those out on the trails.

'We try to cover everything, including footwear and aftercare. We want to make sure people look after themselves as well as getting out on to the trails.

'It's about giving people more confidence to move, with a little more speed, in the mountains, understanding their limits, knowing how to approach them and how also to retreat and be sensible up there.

'Once you've shown a few people, they'll go show their friends and then they might come up and do it themselves.' Despite the familiarity of weather conditions and the tests Fearne has previously tackled, Fearne insists that Run the Highlands will in fact be harder than some of the challenges he has previously completed.

It is very different to the Alps,' he admits. 'The Alpine trails are very easy going compared to the Highland ones. Ok, you have altitude to deal with, there are some parts where you could be at 2000m above sea levels on some really beautiful trails but they're not particularly technical. If you try to get closer to the summits, it does become more alpine rather than running.