Kendal Mountain Festival - Wild Water Night

[Robin Ashcroft]

Kendal Mountain Festival - Wild Water Night
Friday 20th November at 8.30pm

Kendal’s ever popular Wild Water Night is the opportunity for paddlers – of all persuasions - to get together to enjoy the best of paddle film and be inspired for new adventures of their own. This year the talk is on wilderness Canadian Canoeing and our guest speaker is John Cousins.

'There Were Three in the Boat……' - Wilderness Canadian Canoeing in Northern Ontario

John Cousins skied across Alaska's Hayes range and then sea kayaked on the Kenai peninsula in 1986 and has been seeking out remote adventures ever since. He is an International Mountain Guide and Director of Training at Plas y Brenin who rediscovered open canoeing five years ago with the birth of his daughter. Since then they have had a number of multi day journeys up and down the West coast of Scotland, circuited the Bowron Lakes in British Columbia before taking a float plane across the Temegami region of Northern Ontario earlier this year. With five year old squealing 'yeehah' on every rapid they paddled the Lady Evelyn River and linked up lakes and portages on a twelve day traverse with only blackfly and the odd rustle in the trees for company. John's talk will look over some of these formative wilderness journeys before redefining the family holiday in Temegami this year!

Tickets available online or via the box office 01539 725133. Festival details at www.mountainfest.co.uk


Kendal Mountain Festival - Main Programme
Thu 19th-Sun 22nd November

"Kendal" is one of the big three mountain, outdoor and adventure film festivals worldwide. The festival has always been a coveted opportunity for film-makers to premiere their films, and this year is no different. Don’t miss the world premiere of The Asgard Project, the latest from Alastair Lee featuring Leo Houlding big-wall climbing on Baffin Island. Kendal also hosts the European premiere of The Wildest Dream, based on George Mallory’s Everest expeditions - narrated by Liam Neeson with the voices of Ralph Fiennes as Mallory, the late Natasha Richardson as Ruth Mallory, Hugh Dancy as Sandy Irvine and Alan Rickman as Noel Odell. Then there’s Cho Oyu 1959 about the first female attempt on an 8000m peak, which ended in tragedy. Eileen Heely shot film high on the mountain but it never saw the light of day until now, 50 years later, Kendal sees its premiere. Finally there’s Welsh Connections, a climbing tour through Wales with Pete Whittaker on The Quarryman, Johnny Dawes on The Bolton Wanderer, Nick Bullock and James McHaffie at Gogarth, Paul Pritchard back on the slate plus Gav Symonds and Tim Emmett attempting San Simeon (E8) as a DWS. Crux is 60ft up…

Make sure you book Friday off as Kendal’s not just a top weekend – it’s a long weekend!
Big lectures include Steve House, Cameron McNeish, Simon Yates plus Andy Kirkpatrick and Ian Parnell climb El Capitan with Major Phil Packer, the army officer injured in Iraq. Niall Grimes talks with Jerry Moffatt about his life and climbs, there’s the Asgard Project premiere plus the legendary Snowsports Night.

Want to learn how to shoot film outdoors? Try the Adventure Film Academy, the best value in adventure film-making anywhere given the calibre of the course tutors – all top professionals who have worked on BAFTA and EMMY winning films (eg Touching The Void), for the BBC and more.

If you’re up for a couple of pints over the weekend make sure you try the Hesket Newmarket brewery’s Kendal MRT Special. Created especially for the Festival, every pint sold donates 20p to Kendal Mountain Rescue. Given that last year saw a record number of pints consumed, let’s try for a new record – it’s in a good cause!

Dates are 19-22 November with the Adventure Film Academy 16-20th. Tickets available online or via the box office 01539 725133. Festival details at www.mountainfest.co.uk