A Persian cat has made history by being the first to conquer the Three Peaks, completing the challenge while walking on a lead with its owner.
Louis the seven-year-old cat made the journey alongside owners Jess Peters and Dan Taylor earlier this week, and spent 29 hours walking up Scafell Pike, Ben Nevis and Mt Snowdon.
Jess, 31, and Dan, 34, made it to the top of each peak with Louis in tow, and said their cat was ‘better prepared than we were’ due to his habit of walking up to six miles each day.
The couple, from Sherfield English, Hants, said Louis ‘loves adventures’ and claimed he was ‘a bit like a dog’. They also said he tried to walk the entire length of the trip and refused to be carried- although they had to scoop him up near the end when he started to get cold near the summit.
‘There are other cats that have climbed mountains, but we have checked and Louis is the first cat to climb the Three Peaks,’ said Dan, who is training to be a truck driver. ‘It feels great to have him immortalised, hopefully he goes down in history.’
The trio started their journey with a trip up Snowdon in May, followed by a trek up Ben Nevis over the August Bank Holiday and finally finishing off with an excursion up Scafell Pike, in the Lake District, on Saturday.
Jess has had Louis for seven years and has been walking him since he was a kitten, the BBC reports.
‘He’s a Persian, so the idea was that he is an indoor cat,’ she said.
‘I started walking him round the garden. He loved it. Then we went out to the woods and he loved it even more.’
‘He just loves being outside,’ she added.
Dan said he and Jess, an aerospace engineer and author, also love to hike and had the idea to take their adventurous pet with them.
He said: ‘When we first did Snowdon we thought it would be quite funny to take him with us because he loves adventures.
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‘He’s out walking every day, he does an average of five to six miles every day.
‘We keep a tracker on him to monitor him – he goes out and about, anywhere that interests him, or sometimes climbs up a tree.
‘He was better prepared for these mountains than we were.’
He added: ‘For these walks he’s got his harness and a lead. He does have a few different outfits and a coat too.
‘We prepared his water and food and took a blanket in case he got cold.
‘For Snowdon and Ben Nevis we had miserable weather, but luckily for Scafell Pike it was beautiful.
‘Being a cat, he loves to wander off. While we were climbing he would see something that interested him and head over there.
‘We were led by him but when he spent too long we made sure he got back on track.’
Snowdon took eight hours, Ben Nevis took 11 hours, and Scafell Pike took 10 hours.
‘Everyone was so shocked to see a cat climbing a mountain’, said Dan.
‘We would get stopped by everyone as we were walking up, so that added on loads of time.
‘It got to the point where people would stop and ask “oh my god is that a cat?” and I joked “no, it’s a penguin”.
‘He has done so well but did get a little tired, we had to have a cat nap at times.’
The couple are now planning a new adventure for Louis.
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