Mountain Air

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“I want to help people and I want to be useful, and that’s the main reason for doing it all”

Episode 3#08 meets Claire Maxted, who was forced to run at school. She hated it. Yet, just a couple of decades later the recently appointed BMC Summit editor can count Trail Running magazine, the Wild Ginger Running YouTube channel and “The Ultimate Trail Running Handbook” amongst projects she’s founded, managed and authored.

So what did it take to turn the horrors of “cross country, group showers, and the bleep test” into a passion for mountain running? And how did she gain the confidence and experience to become an evangelist for the hobby? According to Claire, it was just a subtle shift in perspective. With a born passion for the outdoors, hiking and hillwalking, it was the 2004 Lakeland Trails series that really transformed Claire’s outlook. In her words, it gave her a view of moving fast in the hills beyond the “fell running” norms of (mostly) gnarly men and (some) enterprising women in vests and shorts running up peaks and falling back down again, and instead gave her a way to enjoy the pleasures of hillwalking… but just at a slightly quicker pace.

“We’re not looking at our watches, we’re not discussing our splits, we’re looking at the views, we’re stopping to take a photo, but it’s a bit quicker than walking and you don’t have to take as much stuff”

Driven by a love of writing, she’d found post-uni employment on hillwalking title Trail magazine, met an inspiring mentor in the magazine’s editor, and a natural fit when the idea of a trail running equivalent was floated by the group’s publisher. From that role it was a natural step to creating the same kinds of videos and guides she produced on Trail Running, but independently and on her own terms. From then until now she’s published 782 videos to her 29,000-strong audience on the Wild Ginger Running YouTube channel (she self-identifies as “a mass of ginger hair rather than a face”). Of all the subjects covered in that archive, it’s the popular “Last Place and Proud” series that sums up her inclusive attitude best of all.

“I realised (elite athletes) were saying the same things, over and over again… so I started to be inspired by the people that were coming last”

Now the author of a second trail running guidebook (but this time focused on ultra distances), the proud mother of a three-year-old son, and the newly appointed editor of the British Mountaineering Council’s quarterly “Summit” magazine, Claire admits that she has always been a little “time optimistic” when it comes to new ideas and projects. With the exception of a harrowing experience on Ben Nevis’ Tower Ridge, it’s a philosophy that seems to work well for her.

> wildgingerrunning.co.uk

> youtube.com/@wildgingerruns

> thebmc.co.uk/cats/all/summit_magazine

Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

[episode recorded on 13/07/24]

00:00 - Introduction

02:00 - Welcome, catching up after a long gap, straight into the birth and death of Trail Running magazine

04:00 - Cross country, group showers, and the bleep test: “I’d always been forced to run at school… and I just hated it!”, the escape to Uni and rediscovering the outdoors

06:48 - “In those days it was either: fell running (really gnarly, wearing a vest and shorts, run up a mountain side and fall back down again); or it was road running”, discovering a new kind of running through the Lakeland Trails races

07:20 - “We’re not looking at our watches, we’re not discussing our splits, we’re looking at the views, we’re stopping to take a photo, but it’s a bit quicker than walking and you don’t have to take as much stuff”

09:20 - Angry of Earlsden

11:29 - “I didn’t really know what I was doing, and floundered around for a bit until Matt Swaine educated me on how to be an actual journalist”

12:15 - Wild Ginger Running on YouTube, sharing the joy of trail running and showing people how to get started

15:30 - “Last Place and Proud” interview series: “I realised (elite athletes) were saying the same things, over and over again… so I started to be inspired by the people that were coming last”

19:55 - “I’ve always been a bit ‘time optimistic’”

23:20 - “... a mass of ginger hair rather than a face”

24:20 - The Ultimate Trail Running Handbook: “I want to help people and I want to be useful, and that’s the main reason for doing it all”

25:45 - Post-pregnancy ultra-distance running: “It’s quite hard work, to be honest”, but you don’t have to feel the pressure to keep going further and further

31:40 - Working for the British Mountaineering Council and editing Summit magazine, catering for a broad range of outdoor enthusiasts with a conservation focus

40:20 - “Ultra-jog-hiking”

44:40 - Paying forward outdoor writing experience

50:00 - Greatest Mountain Memory: eating cow pie from The George pub in Keswick on a Lakeland fell with two colleagues whilst shooting a magazine feature… (also traversing Aonach Eagach)

53:20 - … and bonus Most Traumatic Mountain Memory: learning limits and humility on Ben Nevis’ Tower Ridge

57:25 - All the time, money, freedom… where do you go and what do you do? Taking Finlay (aged three) up his first mountain, walking hut-to-hut and scrambling in mainland Europe, to “instil in him a love of the great outdoors”

Visit: https://mountainairpodcast.uk/

Bonus episodes don’t come more exciting than this. To accompany a written interview on UKHillwalking, here’s the audio of my conversation with Shane Ohly following his stunning continuous completion of the Dragon’s Back Race route from 15-19 August 2024.

Thanks to Steve Ashworth for use of the accompanying pictures.

> dragonsbackrace.com

> shaneohly.com

Read the written article here: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/articles/features/shane_ohly_-_running_the_dragons_back_in_102_hours-15953

[episode recorded on 05/09/24]

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“My strength is my curiosity, and being pretty good at suffering”

Episode 3#07 sits down with mountaineer, therapist and motivational speaker Maria Granberg, whose achievements so far include: climbing Manaslu (8,163m), and becoming only the second Swedish woman to summit Everest (8,848m) via its North Face.

However, it’s the work that Maria undertakes off the mountain that truly defines her character on it. As a behavioural scientist, she has an abiding interest in how each of us faces suffering, learns to confront our fears, and masters that ever-elusive goal of being “present” in any given moment. These are themes that Maria routinely encounters on her expeditions, which include such challenges as: severe and consistent sleep deprivation, migraines, cramping muscles and a failing digestive system, as well as cognitive impairment from oxygen deprivation - a list of disturbing hardships which she handily condenses into the phrase: “the pain cave”.

Yet, to hear Maria speak about her experiences above 7,000m of altitude (much of which is spent deep inside “the cave”)  is to encounter a charming dissonance: she often smiles as she describes them. In this interview, she shares her journey to become the expedition climber that she is today, which includes enduring the stress and competition of teenage athletics, living amongst alcohol abuse, overcoming deep depression, and being rescued from it all by the discovery of thin air and high altitude on Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro (5,892m).

Since that point her love of high and remote places has taken her back to Africa to lead climbs, on a “month-long sufferfest in Kyrgyzstan” (in which she lost 15kg but gained some of the most enduring memories of her life), to pursue qualification and to help heal others as a professional psychotherapist, and to discovery humility, “sheer presence” and the art of “blissful dissatisfaction” in all the places she’s discovered along the way.

> www.mariagranberg.se
> https://www.instagram.com/granbergadventureathlete/

Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

[episode recorded on 29/04/24]

00:00 - Introduction

04:50 - Welcome, moving to the mountains, outdoor life in the town of Åre (“the Swedish Tahoe”)

06:53 - Growing up a swimmer and “outdoor kid” in a 250-person mining village (“I didn’t know a single person who did mountaineering, or had even climbed a mountain”), using athletics to “grow and learn” as a teenager and young person. Getting derailed by severe depression. Moving to Tanzania and discovering climbing on Kilimanjaro

10:13 - “Something clicked, and when I came back home I got obsessed with high altitude”

11:06 - Being a sensitive child: “I have a very close relationship with my fears. I get adrenaline very, very easily”. Tackling fears through repetitive exposure: “I couldn’t accept the fact of a feeling holding me back from something that I wanted to do”

14:38 - The pressure of “striving to become the next version of yourself”, to prove yourself all the time. Growing up amongst alcohol abuse, and developing eating issues. Using sports and performance to “compensate for not having a deeper sense of self, and value of self”

19:53 - “I knew what pushing myself really hard felt like, because I had done that most of my life. But entering high altitude… reluctantly you have to shed all ego and enter a space in yourself which is more about surrendering. It was new to me, and I liked not having the control”

22:08 - “It was one of the most humbling experiences I’ve ever had, and a coming home to sheer presence”

23:03 - “It was excruciating” (with a smile)

23:55 - “My strength is my curiosity, and being pretty good at suffering. I like the suffering. I like when I get to that point because I know the gifts of suffering. So I discovered in high altitude that ‘this is my jam’”

26:33 - “A reckoning with the ambivalence of life”

28:28 - Studying to become a behavioural scientist, gaining climbing experience, pursuing expeditions, guiding on Kilimanjaro, 6,000m+ climbing in Kyrgyzstan, learning from the most experienced people, a “six year plan”

32:28 - “I didn’t just gain a life partner, I gained a climbing partner as well… if you see a guy with a big red beard and a loud laugh that is a good cue that it’s him”

34:58 - Pursuing psychotherapy qualifications alongside mountain ambitions

37:13 - “Having a spotlight on me is something that I’ve never truly been comfortable with”, contrasted with sitting in a therapy room and it being entirely about the other person

42:18 - The anxiety of building a career and then stepping away from it in case it all vanishes

44:03 - The best part of a day as a therapist, and the best part of a day filming in the high mountains: living in the moment and feeling sincere connections with others

49:18 - “Chasing another moment” and learning to seek “blissful dissatisfaction”, getting into meditation and yoga when I was about 19,20… and it was the worst experience of my life”, taking 10 years to learn to come to an activity without any specific goals 

56:48 - Explaining the “pain cave” of acclimatising to high altitude mountaineering: “in the beginning it felt like a fight, and now it feels like a painful dance”. Migraines, sleepless days and nights, which begin again above 7,000m 

59:38 - “I’d eaten an apple and half a power bar in 72hrs. I went up in the middle of the night heading towards the summit and every step I took felt like a max deadlift. I felt like I weighted two tonnes, and my stomach was in cramps. I knew it was not dangerous. It was hard, but not dangerous. I stayed in it for around 5hrs”, watching out for times when you might be cognitively impaired

62:38 - “There are different sufferfests depending on where you are in the expedition”

65:00 - Greatest mountain memory: avalanches, glacier cracks and losing 15kgs on a month-long sufferfest in Kyrgyzstan… but also digging “snow sofas” in total isolation in pristine mountain landscapes

67:38 - All the time, money, freedom… where would you go and what would you do? “I would pack my paraglider, go into the mountains and just learn everything I can from everyone, everywhere”

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“Once you slow down you see it all”

Interview recorded 24/01/24

On the latest episode of Mountain Air, Dan catches up with Patrick Davies, a writer, long-distance walker and charity fundraiser whose latest book “Where Skylarks Sing” recounts a 2250km walk across the UK mainland in the summer of 2021. “Skylarks”, which touches on Patrick’s experiences caring for his father as he succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, issues of identity and belonging, and the healing power of walking, explores the “hope of finding escape and answers”.

As you might expect, Patrick’s epic walks aren’t limited to 73 days spent walking across Britain, and over the last three years he’s not only traversed 1280km across the Pyrenees (carrying on afterwards to reach Barcelona on foot), but also made a 1120km trek from Strasbourg to the Mediterranean coastline too. What’s perhaps less expected, and makes these achievements all the more unusual, is that Patrick hadn’t done any serious walking until 2021.

Prior to the pandemic, you see, the focus of Patrick’s life was as a civil servant in the foreign office - through which he served from 2013-2018 as the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the United States of America. His experiences working with the Obama and later Trump administrations led him to write his first book, “The Great American Delusion”. A speaker and commentator on American politics, there can be few people who have had more of a front-row seat over a uniquely turbulent decade for the world’s largest democracy.

Hear about all of this and why, when it comes to long-distance walks of your own, you should “do it, without question” in Mountain Air Series 3, Episode 6.

> patrickjdavies.com

> linktr.ee/patrickjdavies

> alzheimersresearchuk.org

00:00 - Introduction.

02:40 - Welcome. Introducing “Where Skylarks Sing”, recounting 1400-mile walk from Lizard Point in Cornwall to Dunnet Head in Scotland. Reasons for eschewing LEJOG. Personal motivations for the walk and the book.

08:40 - “... about three or four weeks later I found myself in Lizard Point with a very heavy backpack”. Discussing experiences of caring for a close relative with Alzheimer’s disease, fundraising in response.

12:25 - Choosing a more mountainous line: “it seemed a little unfair to miss out the whole of Wales if you’re trying to walk across the country… and it got me into the Lake District as well”. Paring back 2-3kg after three days of walking.

16:40 - “Everything doesn’t have to be perfect at the beginning”.

18:00 - The mentality of a long walk: “It’s a slow pace, it’s a slow rhythm, and it’s repeated… to me it feels a bit like meditation. You just calm down, and slow down”. A revelation to notice things, to see things, where previously the mind would be too busy, “once you slow down you see it all”.

22:40 - Highlights, including: the South West Coast Path, the quiet, open spaces of Mid Wales, the Lake District and (of course) Scotland.

31:30 - Advice to those considering similar walks: “Do it, without question. Once you start it’s addictive”.

34:30 - Previous career as the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the United States, from 2013 to 2018. Writing “The Great American Delusion”. Working amongst American politics, trying to explain Brexit, witnessing the polarisation of views across the country.

42:00 - “I hanker back to a time when politics was really boring… civil service is about delivering things for the general public”.

46:15 - Recalling two great treks following walking the length of Britain: Biarritz to Barcelona via the Pyrenees (partly following the GR10, partly the haute route between it and the GR11), and from “Strasbourg to the Sea” (involving the GR5).

53:20 - Witnessing the result of serious drought in the Alps.

56:00 - Greatest Mountain Memory: Climbing Morocco’s Mt Toubkal in the High Atlas mountains, without much opportunity for acclimatisation (with predictable results) “my greatest mountain memory is that I don’t really remember much about being on the top, other than swaying a lot”.

56:15 - All the time, money, freedom… where would you go and what would you do? Latin America, to the Andes, and particular Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park.

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“It’s about being prepared for what nature throws at us”

Interview recorded 27/09/23

Since 2009, Mark Diggins has been the coordinator of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service (SAIS). This valuable role means overseeing hazard forecasts for Lochaber, Glen Coe, Craigh Meagaidh, Torridon and the two halves of the Cairngorms… as well as being part of the team that inspects “the most unstable” slopes and snowpacks on a daily basis. In part thanks to this excellent service, Mark is keen to highlight that being avalanched in Scotland is actually “a very rare event”, and that one of the guiding principles of the SAIS is to inform and encourage people to make sound judgements about their own winter adventures, and to be more likely enjoy the icy peaks as a consequence. In his words: “the mountains are a really important place where we can learn and develop as people”.

If you’d like to learn more about how avalanche hazard is measured and judged - and how the formation of a snowpack can lead it to becoming unstable - you’ll find plenty of fascinating insight in this episode. What you’ll also find is a comprehensive picture of how a person finds themselves in the head of such an exciting and essential public service.

Mark’s life has seen him inspired by early youth hosteling trips (where he’d load himself up with heavy tins of peas and beans and sleep on piles of bracken), to serving an apprenticeship with his local climbing club, to being mentored in “how not to be blown over” by climbing great John Cunningham. Having dedicated himself to qualifying as an IFMGA Mountain Guide, he spent 16 years living and working in the European alps, eventually taking up other projects working alongside film and TV crews on remote and challenging projects across the globe. His adventures have taken him: across “poorly mapped” Greenland; “caving” down Low’s Gully on Malaysia’s Mt Kinabulu (and climbing up vines when reaching the jungle terrain that followed); to volcanic acid pools in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression; and to the echoing sounds of the Bedouin call to prayer in tall desert canyons.

> sais.gov.uk

> markdiggins.com

> bmg.org.uk/guide/?mark-diggins

00:00 - Introduction

02:00 - Welcome. What is the Scottish Avalanche Information Service? Taking over as Co-ordinator in 2009, now “we have forecasters going out into the field, every single day, in six mountain areas”

06:40 - In praise of the SAIS winter conditions blogs

08:40 - “Getting avalanched is actually a very rare event”, why experience and confidence (and “ignoring signs”) might lead to risk

13:00 - “Go into those environments with an open mind, and being ready to change and be flexible”

15:10 - Reading avalanche charts, and understanding the complexity of avalanche hazard, heading to places that are “the most unstable” to find out the truth

18:10 - Technical chat: Explaining how the snow pack develops, and why it fails

23:50 - “Risk” vs “hazard”

26:00 - “What we don’t want is for people to go out in the mountains in the winter and be scared out of their wits”, the need to inform without frightening, and appreciating the value of spaces where hazards are real (“the mountains are a really important place where we can learn and develop as people”)

32:07 - A personal history in the outdoors: life as a forecaster and IFMGA Mountain Guide; youth hostelling trips; carrying tins of food and sleeping on bracken above the Lake District’s cold, hard ground; being supported and encouraged by older members of a local climbing club

40:28 - “John Cunningham was able to stand and not be blown over, and I couldn’t quite work out how he did that! I’ve since learned, and it is a bit of a trick…”, being inspired to become a Mountain Guide

44:00 - “I would recommend that if people are going into the outdoors as an instructor or mountain guide, that you have something else as well. It’s really important”. Working for the film and TV industry and guiding crews, guiding and expedition travel across the world, the attraction of judging hazards in the wild

46:58 - “Greenland was especially good because the maps aren’t very good, the magnetic rocks aren’t great for using compasses… it sounds terrible but it really went back to my roots of travelling in the mountain and making judgements in a wild place where if anything went wrong, you’re on your own”

50:20 - “If there was a rainfall, all the rain would pour into this gorge and the water would rise 50ft in half an hour. So you had to be careful of where you camped overnight”

53:30 - “Being prepared for what nature throws at us”

54:25 - Greatest Mountain Memory: summitting the Matterhorn with a client for whom it was a lifetime ambition

56:15 - All the time, money, freedom… where would you go and what would you do? Travel to central Asia (Mongolia, Tajikistan) for the mountains, the people and the culture

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“It sounds a strange thing to say about a 400 million year-old mountain like An Teallach… but it’s fragile”

Interview recorded 06/07/23

Dougie Baird has spent his working life building and repairing mountain paths. That makes him the the perfect person to help protect one of Scotland’s greatest mountains. 

That mountain is the ever-popular sandstone group of peaks we call An Teallach - a mountain area eroding quicker than you might expect not just due to “rainfall, footfall, scars, and cycles of erosion” but also under the twin pressures of climate change and funding cuts. This is why the environmental charity Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland, of which Dougie is CEO, has teamed up with Mountaineering Scotland and other partners to raise a much needed £300,000 path repair fund for An Teallach, as well as awareness of the peril facing so many peaks across Scotland and beyond.

In this hour-long interview, Dougie discusses more about and why there’s a need for this three-year campaign, but also goes into great depth and detail about how paths help protect mountains, how anyone with the time and inclination can help volunteer to build and repair them, and what the joys and challenges are of a life dedicated to just this cause. 

He’ll also explain what 10 consecutive 10hr days working in the high mountains look and feel like: how “you’ll get most of your best work done in the morning”, how powerful a thing it can be to close your eyes “for just five minutes”, why the worst thing about it is the chilblains, how working in conservation can feel like a form of “national service”, how rare and precious it is to see the mountains as the sun goes down and all the walkers have left, and how fulfilling it is to work on a project that’s “going to outlive us”. 

Hear all of this and more in Mountain Air Series 3, Episode 4. 

> https://savemountainpaths.scot/

> https://www.outdooraccesstrustforscotland.org.uk/

00:00 - Introduction

02:22 - Welcome, all about “It’s Up to Us” (https://savemountainpaths.scot/), “there’s not really any organisation or government body that’s there to care about this problem”, complex funding models and the loss of European money

09:30 - “... it’s physically very hard, the conditions are often unpleasant to say the least…”

10:34 - Why is it important to repair and maintain the paths on An Teallach? Rainfall, footfall, scars, and cycles of erosion… “some of it looks like it’s been shelled”

13:50 - “It sounds a strange thing to say about a 400 million year-old mountain like An Teallach… but it’s fragile”

18:50 - Is it possible to repair every path on every hill? And how to volunteer

 21:55 - A day in the life of a path repair team

30:10 - “There’s nothing worse than having a bag of helicopter stones even fifty metres away from where you want them. It’s a nightmare”

33:13 - “The few days where it’s nice to just lie back and enjoy the scenery and soak up the sun are so rare that you’ll take a bit of time off for them, you really will. More often than not it’ll be quite cold. Possibly raining. Possibly snowing. Possibly hailing”

37:45 - “Day eight was a killer. You felt like you were working three times as hard, but your productivity definitely dipped. Your effort didn’t, but your productivity did”

38:25 - Women in path work

40:20 - Getting started in path repair, being an “unemployed youth in 1980s central Scotland”, working with redundant miners, discovering conservation “I’d just seen land as a thing I grew up in that you used to be able to work in and couldn’t anymore”

46:59 - “My gear was… so bad”

49:00 - “I’ll never forget watching the sun go down at 11 at night in late May, with the eagles circling… the mountain you see after all the visitors and hillwalkers have left… I thought it was absolutely fascinating”

51:10 - Finding funding for conservation “I never knew if I had a job next year until New Year’s Eve” 

56:35 - Taking part in work “that’s going to outlive us”

57:30 - Greatest Mountain Memory: climbing Kebnekaise in Sweden in a “hostile, extreme physical environment” with 24hr sun, “I’ll never forget having the entire mountain to ourselves as we walked out at two, three in the morning in that glaciated, arctic landscape. That’ll stay with me forever”

59:44 - All the time, money, freedom… where would you go and what would you do? Walking the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, “there’s something about it… it’s got culture and history that I find really compelling”

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“Underpinning it all was this ridiculously amazing team behind me… two years of planning was spent gathering an army of friends and strangers.”

Episode 3#03 meets Jamie Aarons, who on 26 June 2023 became the fastest person ever to have completed a self-propelled round of the Munros. In doing so, she covered more than 2,576km of ground by foot, bike and kayak and recorded more than 135,000m of ascent. The entire round of Scotland’s 282 highest peaks took her just 31 days, 10 hours and 27 minutes.

… but all of this you may already know from reading about it in the outdoor press and even the national media.

What you won’t know, however, is the story direct from Jamie herself. And here she is to do so - during a lunch break from her day job in social care, no less - for the latest episode of Mountain Air. In this hour-long interview, Jamie explains how she feels after such a mammoth undertaking, her motivations for attempting it in the first place, and just what it took - both from her and from her extensive support team - to claim such an astonishing record.

So, if you’ve ever wondered about…

how powerful the “micronap” can be

whether it’s possible to fit a challenge like this into your annual leave

just how inspirational a force an army of friends and well-wishers can be

which Microsoft Office product is key to tackling a Munro speed challenge

what it is that draws outdoor people to the Highlands from across the globe

… or if “hating running with a bit of a passion” precludes you from winning an ultra race…

… you’ve come to the right place.

> Read all about Jamie’s record-breaking round here: jamiesmunrochallenge.run

> … and here: ukhillwalking.com/news/2023/06/jamie_aarons_sets_new_munro_round_speed_record-73379

> Follow Jamie on Instagram, Facebook and Youtube…

instagram.com/jamieaaruns

facebook.com/people/Jamie-Aarons/100090560726414

youtube.com/channel/UCpjvRJ9lrOlPbTGSjgIUTdQ

> Donate to World Bicycle Relief here: justgiving.com/page/jamiesmunrochallenge

Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

[episode recorded on 05/07/23]

00:00 - Introduction.

03:14 - Welcome, fastest ever self-propelled Munro record, “it’s all still a bit surreal”, feeling “quite lethargic, a little less narcoleptic”, falling asleep during meals, an overview of the challenge.

07:40 - Sleeping “considerably less” than four hour a night, the skill of “micronaps” for periods as little as 60 seconds.

11:24 - A 2,576km route… and other stats, “the terrain isn’t conveyed in those stats - not every kilometre is equal… the most efficient route was to connect many hills in ways that are not commonly done (or never done)”. An “incredibly special” challenge.

14:04 - What does it take to complete such a challenge? The “glimmer of maybe”. A lifetime of building endurance. The enjoyment of the planning, spreadsheets, friends and logistics, “coming to grips with new aspects of Excel”.

17:20 - “Underpinning it all was knowing that I had this ridiculously amazing team behind me… that two years of planning was gathering an army of friends and strangers”.

18:12 - Gathering supporters. A hiking challenge, not a running one, a “continuously putting one foot in front of the other challenge”. An overview of the support involved.

22:20 - “Lots of chat… it was about sharing time on the hills with friends old and new… it’s a lot easier to take a 60 second nap when there’s someone hovering over you, waiting to wake you up”.

23:20 - “Even before we started we’d made what I knew were lifelong friendships through the planning. Even if we hadn’t been successful, there’s success in finding these kindred spirits of cyclists and hillwalkers”.

26:40 - The sport of “dot watching Jamie”... “a bit overwhelming, but incredibly motivating”.

28:28 - Growing up as a competitive swimmer, life in California, University in Chicago, living in New Zealand’s South Island, moving to Scotland in 2005. Starting a career in social work. 

31:00 - Praising the “right to roam”, being an “outdoors person

35:30 - “I never ran growing up, I hated it with a bit of a passion”, building up the tenacity and endurance to win ultra races. Running the West Highland Way in a day because it wasn’t clear if it were possible or not.

38:43 - Comparing ultra-running and social work.

42:00 - Greatest Mountain Memory: on the challenge, in the Fannichs with friends, inspiring a daughter’s 13-year-old daughter to “storm ahead”, “it so reflected in that moment what I’d hoped to create in the challenge… it brought tears to my eyes then”. 

45:50 - All the time, money, freedom… where would you go and what would you do? Getting into bike-packing, using the bike to enable travel abroad. Raising money for World Bicycle Relief and seeing their work. 

47:25 - How can someone break this record? “I don’t doubt the record will be broken by someone that can move over ground more efficiently… but what we’ve greatest otherwise is here to stay”.

48:55 - Future plans: being a “dedicated support person for the short to medium-term… I’m literally not allowed to say no”.

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“There’s no greater feeling than finding people alive in the mountains.”

Episode 3#02 meets a legendary figure in Search and Rescue circles. A member of RAF Mountain Rescue for 37 years, David “Heavy” Whalley has attended more than a thousand call-outs, and saved the lives of so many people in the hills that he’s routinely been approached by rescuees during his lecture tours in the years afterwards. He’s managed rescue teams across the UK’s mountain ranges, ice climbed in Canada, helped orchestrate a successful expedition (and incidentally saved multiple members of less fortunate teams) on Everest’s north ridge, and been awarded numerous honours from an MBE to a Distinguished Service Award.

But there’s been a darker side to his career too. Amongst the impressive statistics of his time on the hill there are nearly 70 aircraft crashes which he’s attended in person. He was senior team leader during the recovery efforts following the Lockerbie bombing. He’s been part of teams attending tragic mountain-related fatalities throughout the hills across multiple decades. He’s no stranger to post-traumatic stress, a term which only came into common use once his career was underway. 

And yet, hear Heavy speak about this lifetime of service in the mountains, and he’s as effusive now as he was as a “wee, skinny laddie” who joined the RAF in 1971 (aged just 17 years old). He’s close to completing his ninth circuit of the Munros, and though he may be retired from RAF Mountain Rescue, nothing gives him greater pleasure than seeing the young generations of rescuers find the same joy in the job that he did for all those years.

Hear all of this, and enjoy an inspirational hour of a life lived to its fullest, in Series 3, Episode 2. 

> Find out more about Heavy here: http://www.heavywhalley.com/

> Read Heavy’s blog here: https://heavywhalley.wordpress.com/

> See Heavy’s recent award for “excellent in mountain culture” here: https://mountainfestival.co.uk/culture-awards/david-heavy-whalley-2023

> Follow him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/heavywhalley

Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

[episode recorded on 23/03/23]

00:00 - Introduction

02:50 - Welcome, Heavy: “I was told to go away and put some weight on”, 5’4” but still able to handle himself.

05:35 - A lifetime in RAF search and rescue as an air crash expert. Losing aircraft crews training in the mountains. Handling nearly 70 aircraft crashes.

09:54 - “You can have the best team in the world, but if you’re searching in the wrong place you’re wasting your time”.

10:20 - “We’re working in conditions when other people don’t go out”... and avalanche warnings only started in the late 1980s. The benefits and challenges of technology.

14:20 - Working on the Lockerbie bombing, no knowledge of post-traumatic stress disorder and at the time, “It took me 25 years… and I’ve never got over it”. 

18:37 - Mountain rescue “is an amazing system, that we should all be proud of. But it’s a dangerous game”.

19:03 - Plenty of individual awards, but “unfortunately I don’t believe in these things. In the military you don’t have an option. They should be team awards”. Losing friends.

21:15 - Why did you turn to this career? The son of a Scottish Minister, but “I was a wild child… and it was join the air force or get into trouble”.

22:44 - “There’s no greater feeling than finding people alive in the mountains. It’s unique and it’s wonderful. The joy of it is phenomenal”. 

24:40 - Celebrating the rise of women in the outdoors.

26:10 - “Sandals, shorts and t-shirts on the top of Goat Fell”.

28:27 - Joining the RAF at 17: “I was a wee, skinny laddie, but I was very fit”.

31:17 - “Thrown in at the deep end” with mountain rescues, three climbing deaths on Ben Nevis.

35:20 - “People would always ask me how I’ve stayed in the military so long, because I would always question everything… which a lot of people didn’t like”.

36:15 - Mountain kit. Working with military issue, and slowly improving it, “we were in plastic bivvies freezing all night… the Americans couldn’t believe what we did… nothing fitted a wee boy, my trousers were huge!”.

40:37 - Using the Munros for training: “the best way to get the guys fit is to blast them around these hills”

41:50 - Being one of the first groups to go ice-climbing in Canada, “it was phenomenal, you’ve never seen ice like this… ice screws that worked!”.

44:07 - The 2001 Everest North Ridge expedition… with a garden shed. Put two on the summit and were involved in three rescues…. “You can get yaks to 21,000ft, that’s the height of McKinley”, “on any big mountain the objective dangers are huge, a serac can fall”.

 49:10 - Greatest Mountain Memory: advanced base camp on Everest, filling 50 bags of rubbish with the Sherpa team, and paying for it themselves. Plus, back in Fort William, seeing the younger generation find as much joy in rescue. 

54:25 - “Mountaineering is very selfish, so all we can do is make it as safe as we can… you can’t explain it to people that don’t do it”. Recovering from trauma and the loss of friends in the hills. Plans for writing a book, and meeting rescued walkers and climbers at lectures.

58:05 - All the time, money, freedom… where do you go and what do you do? “I’d like to go and trek through the Himalays with my granddaughters, to show them the mountains I’ve been on. That would be wonderful. It would give me a big buzz. We’re very lucky with what we’ve got, we’ve just got to fight to keep it”.

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“I get excited about something and I say yes, and then I do it. And I enjoy doing it, so I keep doing it.”

Episode 3#01 of Mountain Air stars Steph McKenna, winner of the fabulously titled 2023 Fort William Festival “Scottish Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture”.

Steph was caught unawares by the award (mainly because she had not idea she’d been nominated), but look into why she won and it’s hardly a surprise at all. Though only 22-years old, she has lent emotional support to those that need it volunteering and mentoring for her local charity Lochaber Hope, overseen positive changes for young people and helped them grow a sense of “camaraderie, place and purpose” in the Lochaber Youth Theatre, worked as a seasonal ranger for the John Muir Trust on the Nevis range, co-founded the Fort William Foxes (a mountain biking group focused on encouraging and empowering women riders), and even found time to gain a first-class degree in Psychology for which she wrote an award-winning final year dissertation entitled “An Interpretation of wild swimming in the Scottish Highlands. The relationship between flow, the therapeutic landscape and wellbeing”.

How does one achieve so many things by so young an age? Where does the energy to tirelessly help others come from? Which Lord of the Rings character did she pretend to be as a child? Can you ever run out of adventures in the Lochaber area? How does Utah compare to the West Highlands? Are you ever too young to be covered in mud or submerged in an icy river? What ties together carbon sequestration and the future of the highland water vole?

The answers to all these questions and more feature in this first episode of the third series of Mountain Air.

> Read more about Steph McKenna here: https://mountainfestival.co.uk/culture-awards/stephanie-mckenna-ya-2023/

[episode recorded on 10/03/23]

> Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

00:00 - Introduction

02:50 - Welcome, winning the Fort William Festival “Scottish Youth Award for Excellent in Mountain Culture” award… but not having a Fort William accent. Also, Utah.

08:38 - Volunteering and mentoring for Lochaber Hope, “teaching people that they have it in them to heal themselves”. Building a “garden of hope”. Using the landscape and green space.

14:37 - Lochaber Youth Theatre “a real sense of camaraderie, and place and purpose… and the positive changes in the kids involved… that made me want to study psychology”.

20:40 - Motivations for volunteer work: “I just get excited about something and I say yes, and then I do it. And I enjoy doing it, so I keep doing it … I just enjoy the vibrancy of meeting different people and opening up the dialogue about wellness”.

21:43 - It was Benjamin Franklin!

22:20 - Seasonal Ranger(ing) for the John Muir Trust on the Ben Nevis range. Spending days “absolutely covered in mud”. Sequestration. Water voles. Raptors.

28:38 -  Mountain Biking, working with bikes and riding for pleasure - Fort William Foxes, “opening up a space for those just getting into biking, maybe being a little nervous, and just wanting to ride with some other ladies”.

33:30 - “It’s a little bit easier to be silly and embarrassed about some of the girly stuff… or simply beings scared… women’s spaces in the outdoors open up the conversation for women to be a bit goofier, or less formal, or just a bit gross!”.

35:00 - Pretending to be Frodo Baggins, with the dog. 

36:20 - Discovering outdoor sports. Wild swimming (“I was always swimming in the river as a kid”), falling through ice.

39:00 - Hillwalking and mountaineering, an epic sunrise around Steall Falls. Ice climbing. Scotland as a “huge open space with limitless potential”.

43:10 - Greatest mountain memory: a childhood visit to the Steall Falls, remembered later in life. 

45:35 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? Research into the effects of mountains on mental wellbeing.

47:25 - Gardening and putting the bumper back on the car.

> Find galleries, blog posts and many more episodes at www.mountainairpodcast.uk

“I love being able to share what I experience… taking folk to places they wouldn't feel confident to get to by themselves.”

Episode 2#10 is thrilled to meet Kirsty Pallas, of Oban in the West Highlands. Kirsty is an outdoor instructor of more than a decade’s experience who the 16,000 members of Mountaineering Scotland may also recognise as one of the group’s Mountain Safety Advisors. 

Kirsty’s progress in her outdoor career has been as swift as it has been successful: inspired by school-age work experience at her local outdoor centre, Kirsty leapt straight into outdoor instruction immediately upon turning 18. Since that point, she’s gained her Summer Mountain Leader, Winter Mountain Leader and Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor Awards, and has even found time to be a serving member of Oban Mountain Rescue team for the past nine years. And all long before her 30th birthday.

When not finding time to climb on Buachaille Etive Mor and other classic Scottish peaks, Kirsty puts much of her spare energies into promoting inclusivity in the hills. A co-founder of advocacy group Our Shared Outdoors, and of mixed-race heritage herself, she has a driving passion for Britain’s mountains and believes everybody should feel equally free and welcome to enjoy their beauty and challenges.

> Discover more about Mountaineering Scotland: www.mountaineering.scot

> Learn about Our Shared Outdoors: www.oursharedoutdoors.org

Listen, enjoy, tell your friends, subscribe to the podcast if you get and chance, and thank UKHillwalking.com for their kind support of this series!

[episode recorded on 07/10/22]

00:00 - Introduction

02:11 - Welcome, all about Mountaineering Scotland (“the Scottish equivalent of the British Mountaineering Council”) and life as a Mountain Safety Advisor

08:11 - The approach of winter, spreading the message of mountain safety (“it’s really hard to change the batteries in your head torch if you don’t have a light”)

10:39 - A personal history in the mountains: inspired by work experience at an outdoor centre, registering for Mountain Training awards immediately on turning 18

14:56 - A guide to outdoor assessments: Summer Mountain Leader, Winter Mountain Leader, Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor (“they give you as many chances as they can… and if you’re deferred on any element it’s because of a trend rather than a one-off”)

21:51 - Nine years of experience in Oban Mountain Rescue, covering Ben Cruachan to the Black Mount, Ben Lui, and the Isle of Mull (“have a bag packed, ready to go”), use of drones

30:01 - “I love being able to share what I get to experience with so many different people”

33:51 - Long-term goals and fulfilling ambitions in the outdoors (Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor by age 30), “what I enjoy is the variety”

37:21 - “For me, inclusivity is that everyone feels welcomed into the hills”, the importance of feeling represented, the absence of generational experience

41:31 - Our Shared Outdoors, “a group of people that want to see things become more diverse within the outdoors”, film events that focus on under-represented groups

44:41 - Ways to make others feel welcome in the outdoors, supportive conversations and raised awareness 

48:16 - Greatest mountain memory… climbing “The Chasm” on Buachaille Etive Mor, “what decisions did I take in my life that have led me to this moment, and why did I make those decisions?”

51:31 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? A climbing road trip across Canada and the US: Yosemite, Squamish and more.