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John D Burns

Outdoor author and speaker.

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    • The Hot Tent Diaries
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  • Gear review: Brede II jacket – 5 years

  • Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast

  • Peter Silburn: The Norwich Cycling Campaign | Podcast

  • Steve Micklewright: Scottish Rewilding Alliance | Podcast

  • David Barter. Great Scottish Bike Rides| Podcast
Gear review: Brede II jacket – 5 years
Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast

Matt Heason: Wild Rock | Podcast

March 11, 2026March 11, 2026John D Burns
John D. Burns talks to author and adventurer, Matt Heason, about his new book, Wild Rock, which explores some of the great scrambling [...]

Neil Ansell – The Edge of Silence | Podcast

February 19, 2026February 19, 2026John D Burns
Sound editor Derek Williams One of the things that we often forget when we travel through wilderness areas is the sound of the [...]

Fort William Mountain Festival | Podcast

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026John D Burns
The organisers of Fort William Mountain Festival have announce an exciting line-up for the 2026 programme, taking place in Fort William and across [...]

Dennis Gray: Essays from the Edge | Podcast

December 11, 2025December 11, 2025John D Burns 1
Dennis Gray is a legend of British mountaineering. Now, aged ninety and with failing health, he talks to John D. Burns about his [...]

Bothy Women: Milly Bee | Podcast

December 3, 2025December 4, 2025John D Burns
Bothies have long been considered male bastions but that view is rapidly becoming outdated. Milly Bee, a Maintenance Organiser with the Mountain Bothies [...]

Andrew Terrill: Igloos vs Hot Tents | Podcast

November 24, 2025November 24, 2025John D Burns 1
John D. Burns talks to author and wild walker Andrew Terrill about his experiences in igloos and argues his corner on the benefits [...]

Dartmoor Search and Rescue -Ashburton: Kelvin Bull | Podcast

November 10, 2025November 12, 2025John D Burns
John D. Burns talks to Search and rescue team member, Kelvin Bull, about his work with the team of volunteers responding to emergency [...]

Peak Bagging Peak District: Anna Paxton | Podcast

September 19, 2025September 19, 2025John D Burns
Anna Paxton talks to John D. Burns about her new guide to bagging all 121 peaks in England’s Peak District. Anna Paxton In Peak [...]

Ian Crofton: Upland | Podcast

May 3, 2025May 4, 2025John D Burns 1
Ian Crofton talks about his new book Upland, A journey through time and the hills [...]

Behind the Bothies | Videocast

April 1, 2025April 1, 2025John D Burns
If you have ever wondered what it means to maintain a mountain bothy and what kind of people take a look at this [...]

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John D. Burns has spent over forty years among the mountains of the Scottish Highlands. He is an author and public speaker. His books tell of his adventures in this iconic landscape and have become classics for those who love wild places.
Find out more about John click here.
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Outside In Podcast
Outside In Podcast

From the Highlands of Scotland, climbers, hikers and nature lovers talk about their experiences in the wild

Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast
byJohn D Burns

John D. Burns talks to Mark Lambert about his book, A man for all mountains, celebrating the remarkable life of mountaineer, broadcaster and educator, Jack Longland.

Mark Lambert has produced far more than a biography. He’s recreated an era when great unclimbed cliffs still existed, Everest remained a mystery, Greenland’s highest summit was unclimbed, and Britain’s finest climbers simply got on with extraordinary adventures. It was however something else, something quite striking that captivated me about this book. Longland himself was clearly an excellent writer. Many climbing biographies rely on modern narrative around sparse historical sources, but here the subject’s own words repeatedly become the highlights of the book. That, perhaps more than anything, explains why his voice has echoed through climbing literature for nearly a century.

For anyone interested in the Golden Age of British mountaineering, it’s an immensely rewarding read.

Mark Lambert

Jack Longland was one of Britain’s complete mountaineers: technically gifted, intellectually curious, adventurous, modest and seemingly happiest whenever there was unexplored ground ahead.

Here are a few extracts from the book…

Of Greenland and black and white photography.

‘In the clear northern light we could see the broad, unbroken line of the ice floes ahead, punctuated with big icebergs.’

‘The mountains faded as the coast bent away, a line of snow-marked peaks, with clean, white glaciers dropping to the fjords between. At once came a realisation of the drab inadequacy of most arctic photographs on seeing for the first time the glittering ice, the cold brilliance of the sky.’

‘The next day they woke to calmer seas. And soon they encountered their first Inuit, a pair hunting on the floes some four miles from the coast.’

‘The team spent an hour and a half on the summit. Fountaine was busy with his boiling-point thermometers, eventually producing similar results from all three to give a height of 12,250 feet (3,734 metres).’

‘Courtauld took theodolite readings to link in with his work at Camp VII, and Munck, rather sheepishly, produced a Danish flag.’

‘They had made the first ascent of the highest mountain in the Arctic, but as yet it had no name. Sometime later, the Place-name Committee in Copenhagen decided on Gunnbjørn Tinde. ‘Tinde’ means ‘summit’, and ‘Gunnbjørn’ recalled the tenth-century Viking Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, who was driven by a storm into the seas west of Iceland, saw glaciers to the west and was thus the first to discover Greenland.’

Speaking of his famous descent with eight porters on the 1933 Everest expedition.

On the journey to reach the campsite.

‘Perched on the north face of Everest, it was also the most inhospitable, the most precarious and probably the most dangerous. The word ‘campsite’ had no meaning here – this was a tiny ledge to which a six-by-four-foot tent had been made to cling only after snow and ice had been hacked out and a stony platform of sorts scraped together at its outer edge. Even then the tent floor sloped crazily downwards and its outermost third overhung the edge, flapping over the face that fell 6,000 feet to the Rongbuk Glacier.’

‘The north face of Everest is made up of slabs overlapping like tiles on a roof pitched at about forty-five degrees. These slabs are devoid of holds or features so that ice or snow clings to them only here and there; progress depended upon the tenuous grip of boot nails and a steady balance. There were few if any anchor points, so if one man were to slip, he would pull with him any others to whom he was roped.

So they had climbed unroped.’

jack Longland was also an accomplished broadcaster appearing on many radio panel games which were among the most popular media shows of his generation.

https://youtu.be/bSKaNjFotK0?si=PvUATPdj_vbpAa_1

A Man for all Mountains is available from all good bookstores,

Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast
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Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast
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Peter Silburn: The Norwich Cycling Campaign | Podcast
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Steve Micklewright: Scottish Rewilding Alliance | Podcast
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David Barter. Great Scottish Bike Rides| Podcast
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It’s Up to Us: Path restoration project | Podcast
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Dan Bailey: UKHillwalking.com | Podcast
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Bobby Motherwell: Singer/Songwriter, Poet and Climber | Podcast
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Climbing in Yosemite: A Memoir – Dennis Gray | Podcast
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Martyn Howe: The Coast is Our Compass | Podcast
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Matt Heason: Wild Rock | Podcast
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Recent Posts

  • Gear review: Brede II jacket – 5 years
  • Jack Longland – Biography: Mark Lambert | Podcast
  • Peter Silburn: The Norwich Cycling Campaign | Podcast
  • Steve Micklewright: Scottish Rewilding Alliance | Podcast
  • David Barter. Great Scottish Bike Rides| Podcast

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