about ‘About Mountains’
This is a newsletter by Ronald Turnbull about mountains, the people who walk or climb up them, and the excuses we make up for this pointless activity. It’s informed by my own many years of fellwalking, mountaineering, climbing and hillrunning; but more significantly, by the fine mountain writers of the last couple of centuries and beyond.
I intend to post here every week, always so far on Wednesdays. Some of my preoccupations include geology, the Moor of Rannoch, 20th-century poetry, the English Lake District and climbing’s Golden Age (up to 1865) in the Alps. So if you find this week’s topic a bit boring, at least next week’s one will be about something different. On the main webpage, and above the picture on this one, top menus let you choose out various subcategories from the archive: hill people, Rannoch Moor, poetry, geology, the English Lake District and son on.
For the time being this is a free Substack. If it becomes widely followed, I may put some but not all of the posts inside the smallest subscription that Substack allows. I promise to never, ever put a paywall half way through a posting, ’cos that’s something I find really annoying.
My own mountain activity as walker, climber, runner, and bivvybag sleeper, has been wide ranging but not especially high achieving: in the Alps, the north ridge of the Weisshorn and the Mittelegi on the Eiger; here in the UK, all the Lakeland hills, most of the Munros, and some classic rock climbs like the Cioch Nose in Applecross; along with hiking and hut-to-hut expeditions in a dozen different countries. I’ve written about 15 hillwalking guidebooks and about 17 general outdoor books, which you can find listed on my Amazon author page or my website where you’d expect at www.ronaldturnbull.co.uk . I live in southern Scotland.
The wood engraving at the top is from Edward Whymper’s ‘Scrambles Amongst the Alps’ (1870) and shows the correct method of crossing a glacier.
Subscribe (free) to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
Stay up-to-date
Never miss an update—every new post is sent directly to your email inbox. The full archive so far is here on this website. For a spam-free, ad-free reading experience, plus audio (if any) and ‘social media’ type community features, get the Substack app.
Join the crew
Be part of a simulated community of people who like reading and writing about mountains and maybe even climbing up them as well. Drop in a comment, or forward the fortnightly posts to your friends.
To learn more about the tech platform that powers this publication, visit Substack.com.
