Hillwalk Scotland

Wainwright on TV

It's not often there are programmes on TV specifically of interest to hillwalkers. Well at last there's something to look forward to on BBC4 over the next few weeks.
On Sunday 24th February at 8.00 there's a documentary on Alfred Wainwright - 'The Man Who Loved the Lakes'. And on Monday at 8.30 there is the first of four 'Wainwright Walks', the first to the summit of Haystacks which was his favourite Fell. The programmes mark the centeneary of his birth.
I don't know how well known he is to younger hillwalkers but his story and the pictorial guides he wrote should make a fascinating story. His love of the Lakes were written up by hand together with sketches of the walks he undertook.His guide books were for many years the principal guides to Englands highest hills.
I just hope I remember to watch them or set the video!

Hillwalking on You Tube

Like many bloggers I'm interested in how the internet and technology is changing how people communicate with each other. One of the most astonishing developments of the last year is the huge growth in video sharing sites such as You Tube.

Reading today that Google is considering buying the site led me to look to see if there was any videos that would be of interest to readers of Hillwalk Scotland. Well there is - although most are very much home movies with decidedly suspect camera work and little or no editing. Of course for many that is part of the charm, otherwise the site would not be successful.

What struck me is interesting is how easy it is to share and distribute the videos. The site provides code that you can copy and paste to embed the video into other sites. So for the first time here is a short You Tube video by a contributor called Etive showing off the view from the highest point on the Skye ridge, Sgurr Alasdair.

Slioch Memories

Back in 1988 I went with some friends to Gairloch for a weeks holiday. The plan was to do some cycling, walking and golf - there's a lovely little 9 hole course there. On one of the days we decided to do a hillwalk and went up the nearby mountain of Slioch. That was it, I was hooked and have since spent a lot of time on the hills climbing all 284 Munros and quite a few others as well.

So I have a particular affection for Slioch but have not yet had an opportunity to climb it again. So I was particularly pleased to see Armin Grewe's Travelogue page of his day on Slioch. It includes a very good Quick Time panorama and it certainly brought back memories of my first Munro.

Climbing Film Premiere

The Mountain Film season is about to get underway with Festivals held in a number of locations. One of the films getting its World Premiere at Edinburgh is gathering a lot of interest. Seemingly since going up on the Festival website the trailer was downloaded 11,000 times in 48hours.

E11 tells the story of the first ever ascent of Rhapsody on Dumbarton Rock considered by some as the world’s hardest rock climb. It features Dave MacLeod and has been made by Edinburgh-based Hot Aches Productions. You can see the trailer here and believe me you need a head for heights just to watch it!

Mountain Films Wanted

The Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival is looking for films and say they can be 'about any aspect of mountain life and culture, wilderness and adventure, and can be documentary or fiction'. Full details about exactly what they are looking for can be found here. The Festival runs over the wekend starting Friday 21 October.

With more and more people owning video cameras and the ease of using editing programmes like Apple Computers iMovie, I expect that there will be a rapid growth in people making films about their mountain experiences. You can already find downloadable mountain films at sites such as ExtremeDV.

Just as blogging allows people to write without having to get involved with the world of publishing, filmakers will no longer be so reliant on big broadcasting organisations and a good thing too.

Mountain DVD

I went into my local branch of Tiso to pick up the free DVD on offer from Saturday's Scotsman newspaper (see earlier post). The Best of Scotland's Mountains is a 25 minute whistlestop tour of the major mountain ranges from the Trossachs in the South to Ben Hope in the north, flying over Loch Lomond, Glen Etive, Glencoe, Ben Nevis, Skye, Cairngorm and Torridon en route.
The aerial photography is absolutely magnificent - in particular a tremendous sequence around Ben Nevis. The DVD is well worth picking up, so if you did buy Saturday's paper make the effort to get down to a branch of Tiso to get it.

Free Mountain DVD (eventually)

The newspaper edition of The Scotsman is running a promotion today (Saturday) for a free copy of a DVD featuring a recent TV series flying over the Scottish Mountains. If you take the voucher in todays magazine to a branch of the outdoor store Tiso you will get the DVD - it's all a bit convoluted.
Nevertheless if it's not all too much hassle, the DVD is probably worth a look if like me you are a fan of aerial photography - I saw some of the original series on TV and while it was a touch too much like a tourist promotion video, some of the shots were stunning. You can check out a short online film of the DVD at the Scotsman site and if you can't take advantage of this promotion you can buy the DVD direct from the producers.

Fort William Mountain Film Festival

The programme for the Fort William Mountain Film Festival is filling up. The Festival takes place between 9th and 20th February and is being billed as much more than a film festival. As well as a fine cast list of speakers and films, there is going to be winter skills courses, indoor climbing workshops, gear sales and art exhibitions. It's all part of a campaign to make 'The Fort' the Outdoor Capital of Britain. Richard Moore has an interseting piece about these developments in The Sunday Herald.
The Festival has its own website that can be found here.

Pronouncing Gaelic Hill Names

Most hillwalkers in Scotland struggle to pronounce the Gaelic names associated with our landscape. It's a difficult language and for English speakers there is often no obvious relationship between the spelling and the pronounciation. Nevertheless for most of us the use of Gaelic names adds considerably to the hillwalking experience and within these names the nature of the hill is often revealed.
So I was interested to see an article in the Weekend Scotsman magazine previewing a forthcoming TV series made by the BBC Scotland Gaelic department. Tir is Teanga, which means Language and Landscape, is a 6 part series which the producer says will "allow viewers to come away with a good knowledge of ‘Ordnance Survey Gaelic’ - and be able to pronounce hills as well as climb them".
Tir is Teanga starts on Thursday 13 January at 7pm on BBC 2.

Touching the Void Nominated For Oscar

The mountaineering film Touching the Void has been nominated for an Oscar. The film takes Joe Simpson and Simon Yates back to Peru and the scene of their ill fated climb in 1985. It's great to see a mountain film receiving this nomination. Information about the films it will be up against can be found in The Herald.