Hiker's almost accidental climb of 40 Yorkshire mountains may set a new world record

A simple challenge to climb all the mountains in the Yorkshire Dales was to prove more than Christian Stocker anticipated when he realised just how many there actually are.

Now the junior solicitor, from Leeds, is waiting to hear if he may have broken a new world record having topped all 40 in just eight and a half days.

Looking back, the 25 year old said he would "probably" do it again, just because it raised close to £2,200 for charity Medecin sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders).

Even with all the rain and the misery and the self-loathing and the stumbling alone through fields and streams, to mount a peak that nobody knew existed.

Christian Stocker, 25, has now raised more than £2,200 for charity

"When I found out nobody had done it before, the idea of being an adventurer appealed to me," he said. "I spent quite a lot of time devising a route.

"But my only experience was the three peaks - it gave me a false sense of security about how easy it was going to be. I was really optimistic - it's hilarious now.

"There's a reason people stick to the popular mountains, that have paths," he added. “It’s made me realise how little I knew the Dales.”

In the UK, a mountain can be a summit over 2,000ft, but it can also be defined as a Nuttall - with a drop of around 50ft - or a Hewitt - with a stricter drop of closer to 100ft.

Christian Stocker, a junior solicitor with a Leeds law firm, thought initially he would try to top 30 mountains in the Yorkshire Dales.

In the Yorkshire Dales National Park, then, there are 30 Hewitts but that number climbs closer to 40 when it comes to a Nuttall.

This news - shared by a climber he encountered on Whernside - came as a shock to Mr Stocker as he suddenly realised it meant he had extra 10 peaks to bag.

Now he's waiting to hear if he has become the fastest person to climb them all, or even the Guinness World Records' holder as the first person to complete it all in one go.

He walked 163 miles, equivalent to climbing up and down Ingleborough 18 times. His total ascent was over three times the height from Everest base camp to its summit.

There were times, climbing 40 peaks in the Yorkshire Dales, where Christian Stocker found himself clambering up moorland without paths.

"I’ve done a lot of research and as far as I can see nobody else has done this," he said. "On some of these mountains it felt like I was the first person to survive.”

There were some, such as Yockenthwaite Moor, with no paths at all, and he found himself scrambling moorland. It was a low point, on day six of his hike. On Great Coum he fell down a hole only to find himself waist deep in a stream.

"The path soon became a bit of grass on the side of a mountain, and then very quickly disappeared," he said.

Mr Stocker has been raising money for charities through various challenges over five years now, since his time as a student at the University of Leeds.

His focus now is mainly with Medecin sans Frontieres, and he is also a volunteer speaker for them.

He would do this challenge again, he said, to raise that amount of money knowing the good they can achieve with it.

"It is an accomplishment," he said. "I almost screamed with joy when I reached the last cairn. It's a certain type of fun. Once you forget about the pain."

To support him visit justgiving.com/page/dales40.