
Words by Amanda Eleftheriades
Photos by Helen Connolly & Julie Murray
A marathon fundraiser in memory of a Dumbarton woman took three friends to the top of one of the most technically challenging peaks in Scotland.
Helen Connolly and Julie Murray from Dumbarton, and Helen’s cousin Fiona Campbell from Ireland, regularly take on fundraising challenges for charity.
But this time was personal.
They wanted to plan something special to honour Helen’s mum, Catherine McQuade from Bruce hill, who passed away in June 2020.
Together, the trio designed their own four-day fundraiser to give back to communities in Skye.
Bringing Her Home
Helen explained: “My mum died suddenly from a stroke during the pandemic, and this was me finally coming to terms with her death.
“I wanted to do something to raise awareness and raise funds for Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland and I wanted it to be in Skye.
“When my mum passed away our undertaker friend travelled down from Skye, took her back to Skye to prepare her and then brought her home to Dumbarton – that was my mum’s last journey.
“We’d done the West Highland Way and then climbed Ben Nevis before, so we wanted to take it up a notch, but I’d also had a slipped disc and didn’t want to set myself back, so we decided to do a combination of extreme with giving back to the community.”
Helen had always wanted to climb the Cuillin Ridge so they decided the ridge followed by a Munro, would be the extreme element of their fundraiser.

Adventurous Challenges
However, one challenge wasn’t enough for the three bravehearts.
Instead, they also planned a 15-mile hike, a beach clean and a mammoth tree planting session.
Each challenge came with its own adventures as Julie and Helen explained.
Julie said: “Helen contacted Skye Guides and asked if they would take us up the Cuillin Ridge and the Inaccessible Pinnacle.
“However they said they didn’t think we’d be able to do the Pinnacle as we’d never mountaineered before.
“That was fine with us as we had all the other challenges planned.
“But on the way up our guide asked if we wanted to do the In Pinn (as it’s called by climbers) and I thought, ‘why not, I’ll give it a go.
“All the way up the views were amazing, the guide was teaching us about the different types of rock and how to climb safely as we went up.
“The whole day turned out to be a blinder.”
At the top of the ridge Fiona laid dried rose petals she had saved from her aunt’s funeral.
The trio raised the Saltire and sang “Sweet Catherine”, their version of the Neil Diamond classic, a favourite of Catherine’s.
Then Julie followed their guide and started to climb the In Pinn.
“It’s a sheer drop at the top and I could feel my legs shaking but I had to trust the guide and just stay focussed.
“I had never done anything like this before –I wasn’t going back.”

Proud of Our Friend
Julie’s friends watched in awe as she inched her way up to the peak, 986 metres high, where she left a final flower petal for Catherine.
Her descent back to her pals was as hair-raising as her climb as, roped to her guide, she leaned out into space and abseiled back down.
Helen said: “We watched her focused on the guide, thinking she’s off her rocker but we’re so proud of her.
“We all had such a sense of achievement and felt it was such an accomplishment when we got back down.”
And this was just the start of a week of adventures.
After a day to rest and recharge their batteries while the skies opened, and winds howled around the little cottage they had rented, the trio were ready for their next challenge – a 15-mile trek from Glen Brittle to Sligachan with a dip in the Fairy Pools en route.
Julie said: “It had been so wild the day before and the ground was sodden, we had to cross burns and wade through bogs.
“Helen nearly lost her boot-but the sky was amazing!
“We’d hoped to see a rainbow while we were on Skye, but I’ve never seen so many rainbows – they were every where.
“We saw them every day and they just kept getting more and more vibrant, they kept us going.”
The rainbows brought back memories of Catherine’s funeral which Helen described as “a celebration of her life” with her friends and family gathered in the grounds of St Michael’s church dressed in every colour of the rainbow.
Tree Planting with Love
The following day the friends headed to Kinloch Forest for a tree-planting session which Helen had organised with the Forestry Commission who provided them with equipment and 500 alder trees.
But this too proved even more challenging than expected, as Helen explained.
“Where we did the planting, it was in a harvested area full of bogs and old tree stumps where volunteers don’t usually get to work.
“It was hard work, but we wanted to give something back to Skye.”
Their final challenge was beach cleaning at Talisker Bay.
Again, Helen had contacted a local group who provided them with equipment and arranged to pick up the bags of rubbish when they were finished.
Helen laughed as she remembered this day: “We’d done beach cleans before but nothing like this!
“The boulders were massive, the wind was blowing a gale and we were slipping and sliding everywhere-it was a real challenge!”
And Julie added: “Everyone we met was lovely, they really appreciated what we were doing as they are fed up with tourists just leaving a mess behind them.
“It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it, and it does so much for your own well-being.
“I’d do it all again tomorrow!”

And at the end of the week the friends had not only achieved their aim of giving back to the communities of Skye, they had also raised over £2,500 for CHSS.
Helen said: “We know times are tough for people, so we set an initial target of £500 but we’d raised this within days.
“We hadn’t expected to raise so much but my friends know the close relationship I had with my mum, they were all so generous.”
And the fundraising didn’t stop there as Julie’s employer Chivas Brothers added a£500 donation through their Doubling-up Fund
Helen’s employer the Edrington Group also triple-matched the total via their Giving Back fund bringing the final total to over £10,000.
Helen said: “I’m so proud to have done those challenges with my friends and to have the mental strength to do that for my mum.”
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