Mountain Air

> 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.

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

“You’ve got to acknowledge that you’re just a fragment in time.”

Episode 2#9 settles down with Doug Bartholomew, a man who has the dream job of managing one of Scotland’s great landscapes. Seek him on a weekday, Saturday or Sunday and you’ll find him and his team of fellow NatureScot employees on Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands National Nature Reserve in Wester Ross. This 48 square kilometres of magnificent highland wilderness requires hard work to keep it running sustainably, and constant attention is required to replenish the native Caledonia pinewoods that still grow in these soils. As a consequence, Doug finds himself stalking deer, nurturing and planting up to 20,000 pine seedlings, and enduring vicious swarms of midges throughout his working year. Told you it was a dream job.

Doug reveals how he came to be in this “dead man’s shoes” kind of role, why volunteers on the reserve are absolutely essential to its continued success, and how much joy can be found running and climbing in this exceptional landscape when you wake and work between its peaks.

> Want to volunteer at Beinn Eighe and Loch Maree Islands NNR yourself? Walk this way.

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 30/08/22]

00:00 - Introduction

01:56 - Welcome, living on Beinn Eighe Nature Reserve (“it’s a short commute to work”) amongst the “largest remnant” of ancient Caledonian pinewood

06:06 - A run-down of a Reserve Manager’s job, stalking deer and growing trees from seed

09:06 - A small team for a 5,000 hectare area

11:24 - Growing 20,000 trees per year, repairing deforestation by humans and herbivores

16:06 - “As a manager, you want to see things happen in your time… but especially with woodland restoration like this you’ve got to acknowledge that you’re just a fragment in time when you think of the hundreds of years it’ll need to restore these landscapes.”

17:11 - More about deer management, “aiming for a about 1-2 deer per kilometre squared”, the absence of apex predators (“we don’t have an intact natural process”)

20:06 - A “‘dead man’s shoes” kind of job

20:36 - Doug’s journey to becoming a Reserve Manager, the challenges of conservation, feeling a connection to the environment

29:36 - Getting out in the evenings and getting up high - “if you can run, you can pack a lot into a short time… to get up on the Beinn Eighe ridge while the light’s flooding in from the west”, the scrambly mountain running in the area

32:46 - Multi-pitch trad climbing on Beinn Eighe, and the appeals of winter when ice climbing is in. Being one step ahead of UKClimbing’s forums

36:26 - Welcoming the general public, the first waymarked route in Britain which rises to 500m with views of Loch Maree

38:16 - The hardest days on the job, being uplifted by the “vibrance and enthusiasm” of volunteers on the Reserve, enjoying their varied backgrounds

41:40 - Midge chat: “the weather’s not always hot and sunny… and my house must be one of the midge-iest spots in Scotland. They never lose their bite”... don’t end up with a “lather of dead midges all over you”... “grimace”

45:36 - Greatest mountain memory… a winter traverse of the Cuillin in perfect weather and perfect snow conditions; a winter climb of the Fiddler’s Nose (“I’m still buzzing”)

48:16 - All the time, money, freedom… what would you do? Climbing in Alaska and the Himalayas, but “I love my job and I’m pretty content, so I wouldn’t ask for much more”

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

Episode 2#08 sits down with the charming and disarming J.R. Harris. Since 1966, J. Robert Harris has undertaken more than 50 multi-week trips into the world’s wild places: “all unsupported and most of them alone”. He’s driven to where the US road systems end (or did in the late 60s), 120 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska, and he’s since been above the Arctic Circle 15 times (“there’s a lot I want to see up there”, he says). He’s tracked down caribou migrations in the Yukon, lived amongst Inuit people, and walked some of the finest hiking trails in the Dolomites, on New Zealand’s South Island, in Chilean Patagonia and in the North American Rockies. And, after a lifetime of making dramatic journeys an annual habit, in 2017 he published his first memoir: Way Out There: Adventures of a Wilderness Trekker.

Perhaps most impressively of all though is this: he’s just a regular guy from New York. Well, perhaps not so regular. He grew up poor in one of the city’s many low-income housing projects with a lot of family love and support, but no money to make his ambitions happen… and the outdoors wasn’t even a part of his thinking until the Boy Scouts introduced him to landscapes without pigeons, concrete and cockroaches. He got a job, earned himself a scholarship and put himself through university at Queen’s College. After graduation, he founded his own marketing company and settled into a life of work, family, and meticulous planning of audacious adventures all across the planet.

Since 1993 he’s been a member of the prestigious Explorer’s Club, and in recent years he’s dedicated himself to giving motivational talks to schools, clubs and social organisations. J.R.’s message is simple: if he can do it, then you can do it.

> Find out all about J.R. at https://www.jrinthewilderness.com/

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 09/06/22]

00:00 - Introduction

02:35 - Welcome, a native New Yorker with a 50 or 60 Grateful Dead t-shirts

05:45 - Growing up in the projects, “life was tough, but you get a certain knowledge that doesn’t come through books or school”

07:40 - A “kicking and screaming” sign up for the Boy Scouts, “it was not compatible with growing up in the city”. 

09:00 - “The first time I ever saw grass I tried to smoke it”

12:20 - Requisitioning food and heading out into the wild to be alone with nature: “I would spend most of my time in the summer off by myself”

14:00 - “There were very few black kids there. It was probably a combination of parents who couldn’t afford it, and a crazy notion that Boy Scouts wasn’t really the kind of thing that a black kid from the street in New York city would want to be in. That was the mindset back then”.

15:05 - “I was a different guy when I came back… and I got a lot of respect somehow”.

16:45 - “My folks told me when I was young that they would give me everything they could that I would need to be successful. But they also told me that everything they gave me would not be enough, and that if I wanted to fulfil my dreams - whatever they may be - I was pretty much going to have to make that happen”, working, being awarded a scholarship and attending Queen’s College to study Psychology.

20:40 - First travels: “a piece of crap Volkswagen Beetle” and a 9,000 mile road trip as far north as roads go, 120 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska (“there would be no vehicles between me and the North Pole”).

23:50 - “I want to know what’s behind those mountains. I want to know what rivers, valleys and wildlife… and what it’s like to be back there.”

26:00 - “... sitting on the back of my car holding two coins: a quarter and a dime. And that 35 cents was the last money I had.”

30:20 - A career in market research, starting a business “Don’t convince yourself that it’s impossible. If you want to do it, just figure out how to do it and go do it”. JRH Marketing Services is now “the oldest African-American-owned marketing consulting firm in the United States”.

33:40 - Mixing multi-week global trips with an adult life (“it’s funny how they add up to 50 so quickly”)

36:30 - What makes it special to travel alone? (“I’ve never been lonely out there, and I’ve never come back early from a trip”)

40:20 - “I’m a curious guy with a valid credit card”

44:00 - “The smartest thing I ever did in all these trips was to keep a journal… now I’m pushing 80 I’m still doing trips, I’m still writing journals”

46:18 - Contrasting the different environments around the world.

49:00 - “I plan very intricately, and I take the time to send away for topo maps”, researching long-distance trips in the pre-internet age.

51:10 - Gear chat, testing outdoor kit for Backpacker magazine (“nobody can tell me my pack is too heavy, because nobody’s carrying it but me”)

54:50 - “I’m using the same Thermarest mattress that I was using in 1980”

55:45 - Hand-rolled cigars and a pint of Cognac (“it’s going to last you 18 days”)

59:30 - Is there anyone that’s inspired you? “To be totally honest: no. And the reason is: there was nobody. I always wanted to be an explorer, but there was never any explorer I could look up to. I knew somebody like Matthew Henson who went to the North Pole in 1909 was a black man. But they never taught us about that in school. I heard about (Robert) Peary, but I never knew there was a guy with him that looked like me… I had to find my own motivation, I had to find my own inspiration”

61:30 - Motivational talks to New York schools: “If I can do it, you can do it”

66:45 - Greatest mountain memory… 10 March 1992, losing the trail, a backpack, a lot of body heat, and nearly everything in the mountains of south-west Tasmania (“the hardest trip I ever did, by the way”). 

71:15 - All the time, money, freedom… what would you do? Five places: the top of Everest, the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the North Pole, the South Pole, the moon.

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

Episode 2#07 gets to know none other than multi-talented photojournalist David Lintern. Based in Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park, David is an outdoor writer and photographer of high reputation. You’ve likely seen his images and read his words across many different magazines and websites that focus on Britain’s hills, mountains and rivers. So, who better to spend an hour with discussing the challenges and rewards of this environment we all love so much?

Having just released his latest book, “Thunder Road: Voices from the Cape Wrath Trail”, David’s keen to describe the landscapes and people discovered along the most famous hiking route in Scotland’s epic north-west, as well as to discuss what he’s trying to achieve in documenting these unique subjects. 

He also shares the fascinating story of how a person ends up living the life of an environmental journalist in the Scottish Highlands - a dream job, perhaps, but one which brings plenty of insecurity with its limitless freedoms. From London-based cinema projectionist, to “scruffy musician”, to founder of a children’s charity, David’s journey has taken him from a deeply urban life to one spent amongst the wildest of places. There’s even time to discuss a fateful two-month hike of the Pyrenees and a formative winter mountaineering trip across the Ben Alder range with some deeply eerie details…

Visit www.davidlintern.com to find out more about David’s work, and make sure to catch up with him on Instagram too: @davidjlintern

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 26/05/22]

00:00 - Introduction

03:23 - Welcome, “a photographer and writer focusing on human-powered travel, landscape and the environment”, discussing the book “Thunder Road: Voices from the Cape Wrath Trail”

06:53 - Most definitely not “striding forth under self-imposed adversity”, more details of the Cape Wrath experience

13:28 - War games off the Scottish coast

17:33 - “Vanishing Point” photography project, the struggles of being a freelancer during the COVID pandemic, “lots of freedom, but lots of insecurity”

20:13 - Enjoying “the wrestle” of writing, details of an outdoor media career, “esoteric ramblings”

27:38 - “We were all feeling pretty experimental in COVID, weren’t we?”

28:33 - Coming to the outdoors relatively late, discovering the mountains as an adult. A former life as a London-based cinema projectionist, youth music worker, sound engineer, and university lecturer… seeing “literally thousands of films at the National Film Theatre”

33:23 - Becoming a community music leader, setting up the Soundmix charity (http://www.soundmix.org.uk/who-we-are/), working with the refugee council and “unaccompanied minors”, “what can a scruffy musician do?”

35:23 - An “early mid-life crisis” expressed by walking across the Pyrenees in a two-month charity trip, starting to work with the John Muir Trust

38:10 - A passion for cinema, music and soundtracks, performing background music for TV programmes, an interest in analogue machinery 

40:13 - Creating electronic music and dub via Projector Records: “to call it a record label would suggest that it actually functioned… it was basically a group of friends that lived in a house in the mid-90s”

42:51 - Some heartfelt words about a love of the outdoors and life in Kingussie, “when you live here you realise that they’re called the grey hills and the red hills for a reason… it’s a special place”

49:39 - “The bit that’s important to me is allowing other people to speak… really I’m the least interesting bit of the equation”. 

53:03 - Enriching your life through experiences in the “heavens”. How can we bring those transformative experiences back down to our everyday lives.

54:23 - Greatest mountain memory… a long winter mountaineering weekend in the Ben Alder range, the Lancet Edge, eerie sounds, unsettling footsteps, a golden eagle.

59:23 - All the time, money, freedom… what would you do? A simple answer… and a more complicated one: fixing the gap between recreational hill people, and those that live and work on the land, conservation and shooting estates (“we have big environmental decisions to make as a society… and we’re not able to have those conversations”)

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

Episode 2#06 welcomes a man that may be the most prolific hillwalker in history. That’s because Rob Woodall has spent the past 40 years systematically completing every list of peaks, tops, prominences and trig points in existence. Putting to one side the popular lifetime achievements of the Munros, the Corbetts, the Wainwrights and such; he’s summited all 1,556 “Marilyns” (UK peaks with a relative prominence of 150m), touched at least 6,190 trig points, and even stood atop all 2,271 “TuMPs” on the Welsh mainland (a deeply esoteric list of raised ground with Thirty and Upward Metre Prominences). 

Since recently semi-retiring his ambitions have even turned to the list of global “Ultra” peaks, which are those with a topographic prominence of 1,500m. There are 119 in Europe (not including the Matterhorn or the Eiger whose high cols preclude them), none in Britain (poor Ben Nevis), and so far at least 1,515 have been identified across the world. Nobody has come close to completing this list, and Rob doesn’t believe they are “realistically completable by anybody”. But he’s still quietly ticking them off.

His achievements haven’t gone unnoticed, and it’s likely that you will have read about him in the outdoor press… but so many questions remain:

How has he achieved such incredible hillbagging feats whilst being based in the lowland city of Peterborough?

Has his lifelong career in civil engineering given him the map-savvy skills to achieve his goals?

How does he endure so much driving?

What kit does he wear when he’s out in the hills?

Is there any moment of his spare time that isn’t spent hunting down summits?

How do you access a sea stack?

Can microspikes keep you from slipping on guano?

Is he aware of quite how bonkers the whole thing seems to those outside the hobby?

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 18/11/21]

Note: as there were a number of months in-between recording and publication, the ever-thorough Rob would like to point out that…

The newly created North Northants unitary authority's top is a new hill! See Mill Hill

There's not even a Hump in East Anglia (there are none east of Northampton's Arbury Hill)

He is now 62

Elbrus, for obvious reasons, is no longer in his current climbing plans

The Africa trip mentioned near the end of the interview was not feasible due to COVID restrictions

Time stamps…

00:00 - Introduction

02:02 - Welcome, “mind-bending achievements”

03:57 - Defining the hill-bagging lists (Rob’s done them all)

09:22 - “Anything which sticks out of the ground in Britain… you’ve stood on top of?”

10:17 - *2021

14:17 - Starting a hill-bagging career in his early 20s, opening up further ticklists (birds, botany)

18:02 - A friendly rivalry with Ken Whyte (who sadly passed away after this interview was recorded, see his obituary here: https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/climber.aspx?cid=7239), the camaraderie of chartering boats with fellow baggers to reach isolated island peaks, cake, whiskey and parties on the tops

20:12 - “It’s not the sort of number that you can get to accidentally”

22:32 - The practicalities of bagging: sleeping in the car, keeping up fitness, mountain running the “Big Three” rounds

27:37 - Bagging the 6,200+ Trig Pillars (“they keep disappearing, a few get re-found which is always exciting”)

32:02 - … nuclear sub base… critical assets that are “rather well defended… 20 years ago the fences were very different”

34:02 - Coping with mammoth amounts of driving: “I’m a big fan of Radio 4”

36:32 - Favourite parts of the UK hills and “spectacularly wet days”

40:22 - Sea stacks, gannet colonies, the October “sweet spot” and microspikes

47:32 - “I’m pretty obsessive, yeah…”

48:32 - Praising the Buffalo Teclite and various phone apps

51:42 - The global “ultras” (1,500m prominence)... which aren’t “realistically completable by anybody”

56:17 - Using local guides

60:32 - “Taking on something when you don’t know if it’s possible or not… you get a real buzz when it’s complete.”

62:02 - Greatest mountain memory… Mount Odin in British Columbia “you can’t really see it from anywhere… it’s grizzly bear country”

64:32 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? Disappear into the Andes for a number of months

Episode 2#05 cosies up with the irrepressible Sarah Jane Douglas. In 2019 Sarah published her first book: Just Another Mountain, an autobiographical story of loss and grief, but ultimately joy, love and empowerment found in the wild beauty of the Scottish Highlands. It was a huge success. So much so that it saw her lauded across the national press and invited onto ITV’s flagship breakfast show for a friendly “baptism of fire” (Sarah’s words) with Lorraine Kelly.

You may also recognise her from across the outdoor press (including this episode’s sponsor UKHillwalking.com), where she contributes everything from gear reviews to in-depth walking features. 

What you may not know is that she’s also: a long-term member of the security team at Inverness Airport, a prolific artist and painter, a mother of two, a cancer survivor, a fanatical Corbett wildcamper, Munroist #5764 (“compleated” in 2015), a habitual destroyer of electronics, a hardened instigator (and resolver) of hillwalking disasters, a shameless follower of many soaps, very much a native Highlander, and one of the most passionate, dedicated and candid mountaineers you’re likely to hear on this podcast or any other. She also has an axe.

> Read more about Sarah here: www.jennybrownassociates.com/sarah-jane-douglas.htm

> … and here: smashingcancerintheface.wordpress.com/about

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 09/12/21]

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

00:00 - Introduction

02:00 - Welcome, airport shifts and winter escapes to the hills, why Inverness is “the absolute best place in the whole of Scotland to live”

06:50 - It’s not about the bagging

07:50 - “Being up on the mountains soothed me, and made my troubles seem to melt temporarily”

09:07 - Writing “Just Another Mountain”: “Obviously I’m going to have to burn them before I die, because there’s no way I could have anyone reading some of the content that’s in there, let me tell you…”

11:58 - A “baptism of fire” with Lorraine Kelly.

13:00 - What do people find in the book? “They see a lot of themselves in the words that I’ve written… there is always hope as well, no matter how dark and grim life can become, there is a way forward through those troubles and difficulties”

14:40 - A family history, loss, tragedy and childhood climbing (“thears a bairn on tha’ ruf!”)

22:00 - Artwork: “I was always scribbling on my granny’s walls. She would go mental”. A broken ankle and an opportunity to paint again.

29:10 - Celebrating disaster with “gonzo” outdoor writing, lost tents, drenched electronics, milk-clogged Jetboils, crisps for breakfast, weeing all over yourself… “I can’t have nice things, they just get trashed”

42:51 - “The important thing to me is that I am well and that I am restored by the activities I love to do, and I do love the mountains”

45:10 - Being alone in the outdoors, “hill hysteria”, people being “subjected to my singing”, the nightmare of the hillwalking earworm.

50:00 - Foreign trips to the hills, “I always have this yearning to be on the highest spot that’s possible for my own ability”. A meaningful trip to Nepal.

58:00 - Greatest Mountain Memory: searching for a memorial cairn in remote Nepal

60:30 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? “I would just go away to the mountains and never come back”, food drops from helicopter pilots, building bothies, “spend the rest of my days just wandering from mountain to mountain… I’d be very happy doing that”

62:45 - An Eastenders-based revelation

65:30 - Household chores… with an axe(“CHOP CHOP CHOP”)

Episode 2#04 is thrilled to sit down with Colorado-based Renan Ozturk to discuss his latest film “The Sanctity of Space”. A climbing film at heart, it not only celebrates the stunning landscapes of Denali National Park, the Alaska Range and the film-makers’ carving of a new skyline route across the “Moose’s Tooth” peak (3,150m)… but also pays heartfelt tribute to Brad Washburn, the legendary aerial photographer whose life’s work provided inspiration for the entire project.

And there’s time for more than that too. Renan - a sponsored expedition climber, landscape artist, and previous “National Geographic Adventurer of the Year” - has had a busy career so far. You may recognise him from his previous film projects “Meru” and “Sherpa” (both 2015), or perhaps from his back catalogue of arresting mountaineering photography. Possibly you’re one of his million-strong Instagram followers, or you met “dumpster diving” at Trader Joe’s in southern California, or he offered you a lift in the “technobago” whilst you were both enjoying your dirtbag climber phase. But don’t worry if not, this interview will provide the perfect introduction either way.

> Read more about Renan here: renanozturk.com, and find him on the ‘gram here: @renan_ozturk

> Find screenings and streaming links for “The Sanctity of Space” here: thesanctityofspace.com

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 10/03/22]

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

00:00 - Introduction

03:05 - Welcome

04:14 - “The Sanctity of Space” - Brad Washburn, the sharing of exploration, finding an antique plane, “feeling the magic” in Washburn’s camera 

11:20 - “I think what he created still stands up against the highest resolution digital cameras”

11:59 - Gyro-stabilised gimbals

15:33 - The Moose’s Tooth: “… it’s going to be hard to top that experience of drawing a line with our bodies across that beautiful skyline.”

18:40 - “The factors are always stacked against you in the mountains” 

19:11 -  Top backcountry tip: “...just as long as you always save half your dinner, you’re never going to run out of food”

20:30 - The allure of Denali National Park: “there aren’t many places in the world that are as alive as the Alaska Range”

26:13 - The challenges of film-making: needing “the same optimism you have when you’re doing a climb”

26:58 - “It’s impossible to answer the question of why you climb, and why you suffer, and why you put yourself in these crazy situations… as artists we always want to package it in different ways where the art itself answers the question, these images give people heart-palpitations or goosebumps in a way that you can never do in a conversation at the bar.”

28:48 - Growing up in Rhode Island, discovering mountaineering at College, “I wasn’t one of these kids that grew up with ​​Yvon Chouinard as an uncle”

32:30 - The “technobago”, a duffel bag, a backpack, an “endless summer” of climbing for seven or eight years

34:00 - Painting, not “struggling with technology”, dragging a 10ft long canvas around the landscape of Nepal

39:15 - “Dumpster diving” in Trader Joe’s in southern California, career thoughts

44:07 - Greatest mountain memory: the end of the Mooth’s Tooth traverse “moving for some 30-odd hours… hallucinating without drugs… the summertime in Alaska where it doesn’t really get dark”46:00 - All the time, money, freedom… what do you do? “I’d still be doing what I’m doing now. It’s such a random storm of luck and opportunity that’s led me here”

A very quick update about the next episode in the series…

> visit thesanctityofspace.com