There is a vicious simplicity to the snaking line of summits that make up the Welsh 3000s. This is hallowed turf and rocks: Crib Goch, the roof of a nation, the rock-desert of the Glyders, Tryfan, the quiet, high mountains of the Carneddau. It is a classic: an undertaking that is long and arduous, but eminently…
Category: Mountains
‘A lifetime aggregate of aptitude and commitment’ – how to complete the Frog Graham Round
When Gary Tompsett became only the second person to complete Ramsay’s Round in winter he put his trust in a ‘lifetime aggregate of aptitude and commitment’. (His faith was well judged: his solo, unsupported time of 33 hours was not eclipsed for five years.) I was a much younger man when I first read Tompsett’s…
Running the Rigby Round – the Cairngorms in one go
The glory is in the doing, not in the having done. These words have become my mantra. They are words to live a life by and they are words that ring with deafening truth when I go to the mountains. But what if the doing is insufferable. What then happens to glory? The Rigby Round…
Lessons from Kendal
There are things I know and things, from time to time, I need to remember I know. Speaking about my book, The Mountains are Calling, at the Kendal Mountain Literature Festival, I was reminded of the latter: those precious things I must remember I know. There are far more important things than running up and…
The Mountains are Calling: the launch and the blog tour
The Mountains are Calling was published last week, with a launch at Edinburgh Waterstones. The book is now available in bookshops and via online sellers. Please let me know what you think of The Mountains are Calling here or via the usual social media channels. A blog tour straddled the launch. The highlights are below….
Beautiful Madness
In a life that stretches to more than 13,000 days, I can boil my existence down to five truly momentous days. The day I got I married. The day my first daughter was born. The day my second daughter was born. The day I completed the Bob Graham Round. The day I completed Ramsay’s Round….
365 days of hill running wisdom: April
Day 91: ‘Every time you go for a run, take a stone from the top of Scald Law and put it on Carnethy. We only need 3 metres off one and 3 metres added to the other if that, taking into account glacial rebound and remeasurement by the OS. We can do it!’ New identity…
365 Days of Hill Running Wisdom – March
Day 61: An insight into the High Peak Marathon: ‘The descent off Lose Hill was something to behold – a frantic, impossibly slippy, muddy, vertical drop. Most logical humans would take their time to pick a good footing and a safe line off such a death trap – not so fell runners.’ Day 62: The…
Why running is the ultimate adventure
It is 5am in the Scottish Highlands. The darkness is total; the temperature a few degrees above freezing. On this late-November morning, it will be three hours before dawn breaks. The silence is vast, only interrupted by the clacking of studded shoes on a single-track road. Suddenly, the clack is no more. The runner has…
What to read when you read about hill running
WHAT TO READ WHEN YOU READ ABOUT HILL RUNNING Writing and running are activities connected by extended metaphor: while running is prose, hill (or fell) running is poetry. This sport, therefore, demands writing of the highest ilk. In the course of research for my own book on hill running, The Mountains Are Calling, I have…
The 100th Ramsay’s Round?
It has taken 39 years, but very soon the number of completions of Ramsay’s Round will reach 100. Successes 98 and 99 came last week, as Damian Hall and Charlie Sproson got round in the allotted 24 hours. Someone has to be number 100. It could be me. In the early hours of Saturday –…
Beautiful Madness
Below is my article, ‘Beautiful madness,’ on the Glen Coe Skyline, published in the Scotsman magazine. @MuirJonny
Heights of Madness 