Mountain Air

Episode #9 welcomes a man who’s not only a living legend in the worlds of climbing and mountain running, but also the organisational driving force behind the Dragon’s Back Race , the Cape Wrath Ultra , Skyline Scotland , and the Great Lakeland 3Dday . That means that we could only be talking about one person: Shane Ohly . Shane first entered the scene in his teens/20s as a sponsored climber found...

Episode #8... is delighted to meet Dr Hannah Lock! Currently a General Practice Speciality Registrar (i.e. a junior doctor) based at the mountaineer’s choice of hospital in Bangor, she’s also an expedition medic whose adventures have taken her to destinations as dramatic as Ecuador and Nepal, and peaks as coveted as Kilimanjaro and Stok Kangri. Hannah shares some excellent insights into the most c...

Episode #7 welcomes a guest who’s not just a travel writer, an author of fiction, a chronicler of histories, an editor, and a passionate student of people and landscape… but an accomplished singer-songwriter too. So perhaps “wordsmith” doesn’t quite encompass everything that makes Malachy Tallack tick (any more concise single-word summaries gratefully received). That aside, Malachy tells the podca...

Episode #6 manages to make mention of both Nanga Parbat (8,126m, home to the towering four-and-a-half-kilometre tall Rupal Face), and the exquisite Roseberry Topping (320m, 16th highest point in the North York Moors). That’s because the man doing most of the talking is Alan Hinkes: acclaimed climber, photographer, author, motivational speaker, environmentalist, mountain guide, Yorkshireman, and su...

If episode #5 is going to teach us anything, it’s what Ross Worthington has “triple bagged and buried” in his back garden. But don’t just stay for that tantalising snippet, because Ross, along with Kate “off-of-episode-4” Worthington, is a co-founder of RAW Adventures. That means there’s much to be said about living below and working on Planet Earth’s “busiest mountain” (prove me wrong), and the j...

Episode #4 says hello to Kate Worthington. In 2008 Kate and her husband Ross* founded the outdoor activities company RAW Adventures. Based beneath the shadow of Snowdon/Yr Wyddfa they’ve spent the past decade-plus helping people discover the challenges, beauty, and excitement of the North Walian hills. When not leading clients up Britain’s busiest mountain, orchestrating festival-sized events, or...

Episode #3 welcomes Nina Schlesener to the podcast. Born and raised in the Berchtesgaden Alps of Bavaria, Nina was until recently the youngest female Mountain Guide in the whole of Germany. She’s written the only summer guidebook to her home region which has been translated into English, can climb The Nose on El Capitan in one go, is used to heading up and down Mont Blanc three days in a row, and...

Episode #2 is here, and it's all about photographer, writer and Mountain Leader Nick Livesey. Nick grew up in the city of Peterborough, a place he has little love for and where - despite carving out a career for himself as a musician - he was "going nowhere, fast". Rather than live a life of "self-medication" and frustration, he escaped to the mountains and now lives a life full of fascination and...

Episode #1 kicks off the podcast with Mountaineering Instructor Rob Johnson. Based in Snowdonia, he’s spent the past 20 years guiding clients across the mountains of Britain, amongst the European Alps, and onto the peaks of Norway, Nepal and Peru. He’s taught outdoor skills and Mountain Leader courses to many hundreds of clients (including your host Dan), and has recently added outdoor drone filmi...