‘I watched the mirror for a last view, for the present time, from the frozen mountains of Glen Coe. As the road bent as well as the format of Buachaille Etive Mor slid into view, I did so what I always did, and constantly would. I sensed for that flutter of awe which indefinable, unmistakable quickening of the pulse.’

In the past due 18th century, mountains shifted from being universally reviled to becoming one of the most inspiring things on earth. Simply put, the monsters became muses – and an entire artistic movement about Between the Sunset and the ocean: A View of 16 United kingdom Mountains was born. This movement became a romance, the love affair became an obsession, and gradually but surely, obsession became way of life as mountains became stitched in to the fabric from the British ethnic tapestry.

In his engaging new book, Simon Ingram explores how mountains became such a preoccupation for the present day western imagination, weaving his have adventures into a powerful narrative which gives some sort of experiential hit list for people who don’t have the time nor the will to climb one thousand mountains.

For some of these mountains, the most amazing thing about them may be the journey they’ve taken up to get here. Others, the stories of science, endeavour and art that have played out on their slopes. The mythology they’re drenched in. The annals they’ve noticed. The genius they’ve motivated. The risk that draws people to them. The life span that clusters around them, individual and otherwise. The extreme climate they conjure. The adventure they fuel. The way that some raise the hairs on the trunk of the neck, and trigger powerful, strange emotions. And moreover, what they’re like to become amidst, under, on – just what that indefinable quality is that the English mountains wield which will take ownership of you therefore powerfully, and never goes away.

Ingram takes us high in to the rafters of Britain’s most forbidding, unflinching and unchanging wild places through all the seasons of the entire year – through the initial blush of spring towards the deepest, darkest bite of the mountain wintertime. From Beinn Dearg to Ben Nevis, he takes us on a journey spanning sixteen of Britain’s most evocative mountainous landscapes, and what they mean to us today.