Mountain Festival 2010

Thursday 11th February Launch Party and Ceilidh at Nevis Range
Friday 12th February "Extreme" hosted by Andy Kirkpatrick with selection of the finest extreme action films.
Saturday 13th February "Adventure" with Paul Diffley including screening his latest film "Single Handed". Also Alistair Lee's new film "The Asgard Project".
Sunday 14th February Celebrating the achievements of Jimmy Marshall 50 years ago described as the most important week of Scottish climbing ever!
Monday 15th February Best of Banff World Tour


Friday 12th February
Andy Kirkpatrick's new talk "Victory over reason: adventures on the Eiger, El Cap, Patagonia and the Caledonian Canal." Andy Kirkpatrick talks about the last 12 months, including a fraught attempted winter solo of the Eiger direct, sea kayaking in Patagonia with
the BBC, taking a novice climber who couldn't walk up El Cap, oh and a trip down the Caledonian Canal. Funny, insightful and maybe a little scary, this is a show you won't want to miss. Plus, the finest extreme action films.

Saturday 13th February
Paul Diffley's presentation is called 'Climbers I've Shot and Some I'd like to Shoot'. It's a mixture of chat, pics and video clips. Also, he'll show 'Single-Handed' (20 minutes). "Kevin Shields is known as the 'one handed climber'. Despite being born with most of his left hand missing Kevin has shocked the climbing world with some daring and inspirational ascents. The film exposes Kevin's motivations and follows his progression through the climbing grades, culminating in a gripping and palm-sweating attempt to solo E6 in Glen Nevis."
10 mins Q+A with Paul and Kevin.

Paul's own story is quite interesting. Paul gave up his job in IT to make films before he’d really had any success at it and got friends to help out in his first filming efforts, using them as the subjects and to do the narration etc. Hot Aches was formed in 2003 and is now a thriving film and photography business based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. Their previous production E11 won thirteen international film awards and has become one of the most commercially successful European climbing films ever. Their photography business is expanding fast with a client base that includes equipment manufacturers, outdoor and climbing magazines (20+ titles worldwide) as well as several mainstream publications.

Also, we'll screen "The Asgard Project" by Alistair Lee, this year's block buster from Posing Productions, featuring rock star Leo Houlding. The film follows Leo's ambitious project to make a first free ascent on the North Tower of the incredible Mt Asgard on Baffin Island deep in the Arctic. Leo teams up with fellow big wall climbing god, Stanley Leary (USA), the duo they hope to make a wingsuit descent from the summit. Arriving late in the season the trip soon begins to go wrong, after a spectacular arrival skydiving over Mt Asgard, conditions turn against the team where just reaching the base of the climb becomes a massive challenge.

The film produced by multi-award winner, Alastair Lee, is an all out spectacular documenting a truly cutting edge adventure with all its twists and turns.

Sunday 14th February

"James Jimmy Marshall (1930-)
The architect of modern Scottish climbing
In one legendary week on Ben Nevis in 1960 Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith advanced Scottish winter climbing a full ten years. On consecutive days they climbed six first winter ascents, including the mini Alpine-route Orion Face Direct (V, 5), while also making the second ascent of Point Five Gully (V, 5) for good measure. The fact they achieved all this by cutting steps up the snow and ice appears, from the remove of the 21st century, to be almost unbelievable. Marshall’s skill was such that he could lead routes almost faster than some of his talented seconds could follow." Who's who in British Climbing, Colin Wells.

The full list of climbs is -

The Great Chimney (IV,5) 6th February 1960
Minus Three Gully (IV,5) 7th February 1960
Smith's Route (V,5) 8th February 1960
Observatory Buttress (V,4) 9th February 1960
Point Five Gully (V,5) 10th February 1960
Piggot's Route (V,6) 12th February 1960
Orion Direct (V,5) 13th February 1960

On Smith's Route Jimmy dropped his axe - "The I lost the grip of my axe and it started somersaulting in the air with both my arms windmilling trying to grab it and my feet scarting about in crumbly holds."


Monday 15th February
Best of Banff World Tour films
For more information and to book tickets please visit www.mountainfestival.co.uk