The passionate pair have just completed their last summit and have no plans to end it there.
Tireless terrier Bentley has climbed 180 English mountains, and his owner claims he’s the first ever dog to do so. Him and his owner Jon Birtle have now achieved the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest 15 times.
On Mr Birtle’s 50th he “for no apparent reason decided to take the day off and go climb a mountain with Bentley”, specifically the Pen-y-ghent. They then started climbing all the mountains in the Yorkshire Dales and once they’d completed it, Mr Birtle said he was planning to end it there, but got “itchy feet and had a look at how many mountains there were in England”, and that’s where it all began.
They’ve done up to 5 mountains a day which has never been a struggle for the 9-year-old dog who Mr Birtle described as incredibly fit. There were times when the owner wanted to turn around early, but Bentley was always up ahead and encouraging him to push on.
It took 5 years for them to succeed in their mission and officially covered all bases last week. Mr Birtle assured that he “isn’t fit by any far stretch of the imagination” but he managed by taking it slow as well as the consistency and 9-hour days which made it easier over time. Bentley never has any trouble and is always up ahead of his owner. He’s “raring to go and always first out the car and first up the hill – has got his nose into all sorts” and never bothers any of the thousands of sheep he meets. “He’s a lovely well-mannered dog, he’s just smashing.”
Mr Birtle says that throughout the whole experience his highlights were “bonding with my dog a lot more; he’s been amazing. You get up the mountain and all your worries go, it’s a real good soul cleanser.” He says that having such a high demand job as a civil engineer can be tolling on his mental health, climbing these mountains have really been beneficial.
The duo are currently looking at trekking the Pennine Way from the Peaks up to the Scottish border as well as the Cumbrian Way and the Coast to Coast, in total racking up 528 miles.