Kendal Mountain Festival - behind the scenes

I have just returned home from a hectic long weekend working at the Kendal Mountain Festival. This is the UK's main gathering of outdoor enthusiasts, speakers and film-makers with 4 days of events based round the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal.

A few years back IFMGA guide and 'Face of the Festival' Andy Perkins roped me in to work on the 'core' presenters team. This involves working long hours on a diet of coffee, pizza and adrenaline, hosting film sessions, introducing guest speakers, liaising with the Technical staff and Festival organisers to ensure everything runs smoothly. I originally accepted this as a challenge to overcome my fear of public speaking, but now look forward to it rolling around each year! Most days kick off around 8 a.m. and generally finish sometime in the early hours in the bar... sleep is for the weak, right?

This year I had the pleasure of introducing my good mate Kenton Cool who was speaking about his 8000m peak skiing experiences to a packed Dojo, and hosted a variety of film sessions - standout films for me were Sweetgrass Productions' Solitaire, introduced at Snowsports Night by the man himself Nick Waggoner, 'Sketchy Andy' which contains some sweaty-palm-inducing moments (see below) and the hilarious XC Snowboarding (an oldy but a goody).

A short clip from Sketchy Andy:



And XC Snowboarding:



Another festival highlight (which I snuck into on a rare couple of free hours) was Nick Bullock's lecture "Must get fitter, stronger, better" (or "fatter, soberer, balder" as per Graham D's intro!) which gave a great insight into the mindset of Nick's climbing, as well as explaining the origins of some of his route names (The Frumious Bandersnatch amongst others...).

Now its time for a couple of days at home, then I am off to Zermatt shadowing a BASI Off Piste & Mountain Safety course next week, as I will be delivering these courses later this winter. All we nees is some snow!

Greenland slideshow

I have just uploaded a photo slideshow from the 2007 Greenland Steep Ski trip here. Enjoy!

A short history lesson.

Twin tip skis are taken for granted these days (although 'tail rocker' seems to be the current marketing term :-) ) but I can still quite clearly remember the arrival on the scene of the first ever modern twin tip. Hats off to the NCAF for the vision & persistence!

Huascaran ski

Stumbled across this nice video of Andreas Fransson having a big day out on Huascaran - good effort that man!

Inspiration

There are some folks around who push at the limits of what is perceived possible. Antoine Montant was one of those, combining flying skills with skiing skills to open up whole new playgrounds. Antoine was killed last week in a base-jumping accident, but he leaves a legacy of boundaries blown wide open:


Portrait Antoine Montant par AMontant

Ready for winter?

Itching to get on skis after watching this video - incidentally we are running a trip to Kyrgystan this March...

Course availability 2011/12 & extra dates.

With a chill in the air and frost on the ground winter is definitely on the way - bookings are coming in thick & fast for the 11/12 season, with only a few spaces left on the first Off Piste Introduction course, the Chamonix Off Piste Improvers course rapidly filling up (possible extra group opening up here) and our Kyrgistan adventure now fully booked.

If you want to get your season off to an early start then there are still some spaces left on our pre-season 'Boot Camp' - 3 days of coaching in Chamonix from 14-16 December. This is a great opportunity to get your ski legs in full working order for the winter, previous seasons have seen everyone from occasional off-pisters to aspirant Mountain Guides enjoying the technical coaching.

Extra dates:

We will be running 2 extra Off Piste Introduction courses based in Brides les Bains in the 3 Valleys.
21-28 January (coach: Neil Milne BASI International Ski Teacher Diploma/IML)
25 Feb - 3 March (coach: Mac Mackay BASI ISIA/IFMGA Mountain Guide)

Please contact us for details.