Win mountaineering classics in our book quiz

Mountain literature quiz: the Scottish climbers

This quiz is now closed and was won by Alistair Ballantine, who receives a copy of Lionel Terray's classic 'Conquistadors of the Useless', courtesy of Vertebrate Publishing.

You can still try your knowledge out on the questions, and can find the correct answers at the foot of the page.

Over the next three weeks we’ll be running a three part quiz about mountaineering books and their authors and, in partnership with Vertebrate Publishing, will be offering three classics of mountain literature as prizes: Conquistadors of the Useless, by Lionel Terray; The Last Blue Mountain, by Ralph Barker, and Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage by Hermann Buhl.

The first set of questions, to win a copy of ‘Conquistadors of the Useless’, relates to Scottish climbers and walkers, covering old classics and recently published books.

Send your answers to info@mountaineering.scot to arrive by midnight on Tuesday 5^th May and we’ll publish the answers and the winner on Wednesday the 6^th. We’ll contact the winner for a postal address so that Vertebrate can mail out their prize.

The Scottish scene

1 Who famously wrote his mountaineering memoirs – which became a classic book – while being held as a prisoner of war in WWII?    

2 Name the two authors of Mountain Days and Bothy Nights, the classic book about Scottish bothy culture.

3 Who was the ‘Creagh Dhu Climber’ of Jeff Connor’s excellent biography, which also told the tale of the legendary Scottish climbing club?

4 One of the earlier guides to the Cairngorms gloried under the name of ‘Ben Muich Dhui & His Neighbours’, published in 1885. Who was the author? 

5 More recently, who wrote ‘Sky Dance’, a novel about rewilding in Scotland which managed to be humorous while still getting across a serious message?

6 His first book is better known, but who wrote ‘Sweep Search’ and ‘The Price of Adventure’, about mountain rescues in Scotland and abroad? 

7 Alastair Borthwick’s classic ‘Always a Little Further’ is still cited as an inspiration by stravaigers and lovers of hill and bothy culture. But in which decade was it written?

8 What was the name of Hamish Brown’s book about becoming the first to climb all the Munros in a single journey?

9 Not many policemen write mountaineering books, but a long-serving policeman at Braemar wrote about his involvement with mountain rescue in the area. What was the name of his book?

10 Sandy Allan’s ‘In Some Lost Place’ was a gripping account of which long sought-after mountaineering route? (We’re looking for the name of the route, not just the mountain)

Based in the Peak District, the Vertebrate team are driven by a passion for the outdoors, for exploration, and for the natural world. As well as publishing award-winning new books, they’re making available many out-of-print classics in both print and digital formats.

With Amazon no longer booking in deliveries and bookshops closed, the company has been relying on web sales to keep afloat.

The website is available at www.v-publishing.co.uk . There is no discount code required as the 30% off offer is applied automatically at checkout.