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John D Burns

Outdoor author and speaker.

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    • The Hot Tent Diaries
    • The Last Hillwalker
    • Bothy Tales
    • Sky Dance
    • Wild Winter
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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

The Camping Crew: Interview | Podcast

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022John D Burns
Had fun chatting to Chris from The Camping Crew Podcast Interesting podcast with news and chat about the campervan life. Listen to the [...]

Brian Hall: High Risk | Podcast

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022John D Burns
“In the 1970s nobody died but in the 1980s all that changed.” Brian Hall The 1970s were a golden age in Himalayan climbing. [...]

Cameron Mc Neish: An Eye to the Hills | Podcast

November 4, 2022November 4, 2022John D Burns
Cameron McNeish Is one of Scotland’s finest mountain authors. In this podcast he talks about his new book, An Eye to the Hills, [...]

Tales from a Scottish Bothy | Blog

November 2, 2022November 4, 2022John D Burns
Bothies are remote shelters in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands. Here’s a little sample story from my bestselling book, Bothy Tales. I [...]

Aleister Crowley: Special Performance | Blog

October 31, 2022November 4, 2022John D Burns 1
I’ll be giving a special performance of my one-man play about occultist and mountaineer, Aleister Crowley, 18 November at Touchwood House Inverness. Tickets [...]

Jo Moseley: Stand Up Paddleboarding in Great Britain | Podcast

October 28, 2022October 28, 2022John D Burns
Stand-up Paddleboarding in Great Britain is the essential companion to anyone curious about one of Britain’s most exciting water sports. In this podcast, [...]

Martin Dorey: Taking the Slow Road | Podcast

October 21, 2022October 21, 2022John D Burns
Martin Dorey, campervan king, talks about his life on the road, his books and the small things we can do to protect the [...]

Adventures in a Hot Tent | Blog

October 12, 2022October 12, 2022John D Burns
Ever wanted to try a tent heated by a woodburning stove? Here is all you need to know. The light is fading quickly, [...]

Andrew Terrill: On Sacred Ground | Podcast

October 11, 2022October 11, 2022John D Burns
Listen to Andrew Terrill talking about his 7,000 mile walk across Europe and his new book On Sacred Ground. Andrew spent 18 months [...]

John D Burns: The Hot Tent Diaries | Podcast

October 8, 2022October 10, 2022John D Burns
Listen to John Burns talking about his new book The Hot Tent Diaries about exploring the Highlands of Scotland in a heated tent. [...]

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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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