Paralympian Karen Darke will be honoured by this year’s Fort William Mountain Festival for her “huge fighting spirit”.
Organisers of the festival have announced that Ms Darke will receive the prestigious 15th Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture.
The annual awards recognise inspiring individuals and their contributions to Scotland’s outdoor culture through sport and the creative arts.
Ms Darke represented the UK in London 2012 and Rio 2016 where she won silver and gold respectively in the hand-cycling event.
Recognised as a mountain hero by the public and her peers, her journey has been about commitment, determination and resilience.
A keen athlete and adventurer, her life changed forever after an accident while climbing the cliffs at Cove in Aberdeen, which left paralysed from the chest down at age 21.
Not to be deterred from her passion for sport and the outdoors following six months of recovery, she bought herself a racing chair.
In 1996, the geologist – who had been studying at Aberdeen University at the time f her accident = hand-biked across the Himalayas from Kazahkstan into Pakistan. She would return in 2005 and 2018 to cross the Indian Himalayas.
‘Took me by surprise but is a real honour’
Ms Darke will be speaking at the Fort William Mountain Festival as part of the Biking Night on Saturday, February 19.
The festival held in the “outdoor capital of the UK” will run from February 16 to 20, attracting over 1,500 people to Fort William and the surrounding towns.
Ms Darke, who is based in Inverness, said: “Receiving the Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture took me by surprise but is a real honour.
“My soul is rarely peaceful without a mountain in its presence. On becoming paralysed almost thirty years ago it seemed at first that mountains were a thing of the past.
“Thanks to the interesting technology of bikes and skis, and to great friends who have been up for some adventures, mountain landscapes have worked their way even deeper into the fabric of my being.
“The adventure mindset that mountains have taught me is the inspiration for my next book, which I’m hoping will connect others more deeply to the power in the wild landscapes around us.”
