Mountain Days at Home and Abroad: Walking, Running and Climbing: 40 years of adventures on mountains around the world

'Mountain Days at Home and Abroad' is a lively account of the author's adventures in the mountains over a period of some 40 years, starting from the early days when he took part in annual mountain challenges and volunteered as an instructor on various Hill Walking and Climbing courses run by the Scouts from the old railway station at Lochearnhead. The next section covers the climbing of The Munros, the 282 3,000ft peaks of Scotland, generally walking or climbing but often running up, in good weather and more usually, bad. The book then moves on to cover some longer runs in the Lake District and Scotland, runs covering multiple peaks on long days in the hills. Suffering something of a mid-life crisis the author then gave up his job as a Bank Manager and lived in a camper-van for a couple of years. During which time he toured the Alps and the Dolomites, running many of the well known and less well known Long Distance footpaths; details of the following are included: the Tour du Mont Blanc, Chamonix to Zermatt, Tour des Fiz, Corsican High Level Route, King Ludwig Way, Jura High Route, Tour des Portes du Soleil, Tour de l'Oisans, Tour du Beaufortain, the Alpine Pass Route, Alta Via 1, Alta Via 2, Tour du Queyras and the Tour de la Vanoise. The final part of the book covers a number of expeditions further afield including three trips to Nepal; first to trek round Annapurna, then to trek to the foot of Everest and climb Island Peak, then a longer trek in to the foot of Everest to race the Everest Marathon from Gorak Shep back down to Namche Bazar. Two trips to Mongolia are included; the first to race a marathon in the beautiful region around Lake Khovsgol in the north of the country; the second was to climb Mt Khuiten, Mongolia's highest mountain in the far west in the Altai Tavan Bogd region, on the border with Russia and China. Chapters also cover: a trek in the High Atlas of Morocco, climbing several 4,000m peaks including Toubkal; a climbing trip to the Swiss Alps culminating in an ascent of the Zinalrothorn; a walking trip exploring the Pindos Mountains of Greece; a running trip exploring the Tatra Mountains of Poland; a trip to the Caucasus to successfully climb Europe's highest mountain, Mt Elbrus and finally a doomed expedition to Ecuador when, due to the awful weather conditions, he failed on both Cotopaxi and Chimborazo. The book is well illustrated with 19 maps and 33 black and white photographs.