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Outside In Podcast

Written by: John D Burns
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  • Summary

  • From the Highlands of Scotland, climbers, hikers and nature lovers talk about their experiences in the wild
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Episodes
  • John McLellan: Unconformity | Podcast

    John McLellan: Unconformity | Podcast
    Apr 26 2024
    Listen to John McLellan talking about his new novel, Unconformity. In his second novel, John McLellan continues his love affair with the wild landscape of the Highlands. A geologist at heart, John's books combine his deep understanding of the bones beneath the landscape with his sensitivity to its influence on the human heart. Get your copy HERE ‘Unconformity’ is a standalone novel, but readers of his debut novel ‘The Faultline’ will also enjoy some continuation of the characters and their journey. Set over four summers, initially in The Alps and then across the North West Highlands, we see the inner turmoil of the characters unfold. Life will change for some of them, as they head off on a different and unprecedented path. The novel is about friendships, affection and love, with a continual background of mountains and rocks. We discover the significance of a geological unconformity, not just as an important historical discovery but also as a metaphor for understanding a life. The characters weave their way through relationships as the story moves from the glacial terrain of Chamonix into the spectacular and ancient scenery of Loch Eriboll, Assynt and Torridon. Loch Eriboll Read my comic novel, Sky Dance, set against the challenges facing the battle for rewilding in the Highlands of Scotland. Get your copy HERE
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Harold Raeburn – The Steps of a Giant: Peter Biggar | Podcast

    Harold Raeburn – The Steps of a Giant: Peter Biggar | Podcast
    Apr 13 2024
    Harold Raeburn is acknowledged as the father of Scottish mountaineering. At the dawn of the twentieth century he was pushing the boundaries of what was possible on the ice wreathed cliffs of the Scottish mountains and later in the Himalayas. Listen to author, Peter Biggar, talk about his new book, Harold Raeburn- The Steps of a Giant and his quest to chronicle the life and achievements of this enigmatic figure whose name will be written forever on the face of Scottish climbing. Raeburn was not a climber who sought to publicise his achievements and only wrote about them in very modest terms. For this reason, as Peter explains in the interview, researching the book was often difficult and the author frequently had to rely on the accounts of Raeburn's contemporary's. Peter Biggar author Harold Raeburn As Scottish Mountaineering Press, the book's publishers, explains the background to the book. In feats of extraordinary vitality, he made winter ascents of Tower Ridge, North-East Buttress and Crowberry Gully in four days, cycling from Fort William to Glencoe in between. His breath taking ascent of Green Gully, cutting steps up near-vertical ice with a single axe, was doubtless the hardest ice climb anywhere at the time and was unsurpassed in difficulty in Scotland for nearly three decades. But perhaps Raeburn’s finest achievement was the first winter ascent in 1920 of Observatory Ridge, which remains one of Ben Nevis’s longest and most serious winter climbs. These routes, amongst so many others, were visionary, while beyond Scotland, he pioneered climbs in the Alps, Norway and the Caucasus, attempted Kangchenjunga and was Climbing Leader on the calamitous 1921 British Mount Everest Reconnaissance Expedition. Tragically, the latter was to be his undoing, precipitating a ‘melancholia’ that had perhaps, to some degree, dogged him all his life. With extracts from Raeburn’s own elegant writings and accounts from his friends and climbing companions, The Steps of a Giant is an intimate portrait of a master craftsman, chronicling his outstanding mountaineering record while digging beneath the surface of his modest reserve to reveal a complex, driven character upon whose shoulders subsequent generations of climbing luminaries stand. SMP This is an important book and one which rightfully holds its place in the history of Scottish Mountaineering. John D Burns
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    Less than 1 minute
  • Alan Hepburn: The drive to Re-wild Scotland | Podcast

    Alan Hepburn: The drive to Re-wild Scotland | Podcast
    Apr 2 2024
    Listen to Alan Hepburn talking about Scotland's rewilding journey. Alan is a life-long environmentalist, who fought for a moratorium on whale hunting in the early eighties and today faces urgent challenges to reverse biodiversity decline and combat climate change. A teacher and a trustee of SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, Scotland's rewilding charity, he works to ensure that young people have their voice heard when discussing the future of the natural environment in Scotland. SCOTLAND: The Big Picture has just released an exciting new film Why Not Scotland. The film asks an important question about the future of Scotland: - Across mainland Europe, nature is making a dramatic recovery. Wildlife is returning, forests are expanding, rivers are being set free and wetlands restored. As nature bounces back, people are returning too, finding new economic opportunities and enjoying the many benefits of a revitalised landscape. https://youtu.be/3qogJE4sqtw So, if rewilding can happen in Italy, Germany, Poland and Norway, could Scotland be next? As this new film launches I thought it would be good to ask Alan where he thinks we are in this journey. Alan Hepburn John D. Burns - If you walk in the hills of Scotland, as I do, you'll know that there are vast swathes of landscape laid waste as Driven Grouse moors or or kept as barren sporting estates for the sport of rich men who enjoy stalking deer. Sometimes I find myself losing heart when I think about the sheer scale of the task involved in re-introducing the wild into this enormous landscape. It is easy to forget what has been achieved and to overlook the big plans for Scotland's future that groups like SCOTLAND: The Big Picture are campaigning for. In all this destruction I sometimes have to make myself remember that things are changing. There are beaver living in the rivers of Scotland, something that has not happened for over three hundred years. You can go to the Island of Mull and see the great outstretched wings of a Sea Eagle sweeping across the Sound of Mull. All this could support a thriving economy based on sustainable projects that could revitalise many parts of the Highlands. WHY NOT SCOTLAND This is my novel, Sky Dance, that raises many of the issues Alan and I spoke about. Get your copy here Get your copy of this fascinating and important book here
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    Less than 1 minute
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