The Pinnacle wins at Kendal
I’m just home from the Kendal Mountain festival where I had a great couple of nights speaking about The Pinnacle film and The Great Climb. The Pinnacle won the People’s Choice prize for the best film at the festival - thanks for voting for it!
It’s great that people liked it so much. It was a great vibe at the premiere and watching the film for the first time I just felt so glad that we were able to make it. I think Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith’s story is as inspiring as ever and the film shows off Ben Nevis at it’s absolute best.
Diff gave me a pile of Pinnacle DVDs to take home and Claire has just dispatched all the pre-orders today. I had a watch of the extras this morning, which include our live show with myself and Andy Turner talking with Jimmy at last year’s Fort William Mountain Festival, Diff’s full uncut interview with Jimmy for the film, and also Heatherhat’s film about my first ascent of Don’t Die of Ignorance (XI,11) with Joe French on the Ben. All the info about the DVD is in the shop here. Labels: Ben Nevis, davemacleod.com shop, Don't Die, new stuff, The Pinnacle
The Pinnacle DVD is here
Hot Aches Productions DVD about our re-enactment of the Smith-Marshall week on Ben Nevis is ready. Tomorrow (Friday) I’m at the premiere of the film in Kendal and will be picking up our DVD stock from Diff there and dispatching orders when we come home on Monday. It’s up in the shop to order if you want a copy, right here.
In case you missed my previous posts about our week, this is what all the fuss is about: In 1960 Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith, probably the best ice climbers anywhere at the time completed a week of back to back first ascents of cutting edge ice routes on Ben Nevis. The first one-day ascent of Point Five Gully, first ascents of Pigott’s Route, Smith’s Route, The Great Chimney, Minus 3 Gully, Orion Face Direct and a traverse of the Grey Corries as their ‘rest day’. It was a massive step forward and took the generation behind them a good decade and the development of modern ice tools to catch up. Step cutting these routes day after day was a fantastic feat of skill and endurance. It became a bit of a legend in Scottish climbing, to say the least.
Hence, 50 years later, to the day, myself and Andy Turner felt it would be great to go and repeat the week of climbs and make a film about it with Hot Aches Productions. We had a great night after our week with Jimmy Marshall himself, talking about the week at the Fort William Mountain Festival (which you’ll find as an extra on the DVD along with an extensive interview with Jimmy who is now 82). Since then, Paul Diffley has been preparing the edit of the film itself.
It recounts the story of Jimmy and Robin’s adventure and achievement, shows off the routes and the Ben itself rather beautifully I think. It did help that we had a stunning week of weather on our re-enactment.
Hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.
About to top out on Point Five Gully during our re-enactment of the Smith-Marshall week on Ben Nevis.
Labels: Ben Nevis, davemacleod.com shop, new stuff, The Pinnacle
Lectures in Harris, Lewis and Kendal
I’ve just arranged two lectures in the Western Isles pretty soon - I’m speaking on Harris at the Harris Hotel, Tarbert at 8pm on October 4th. On Oct 5th I’m at the Cala Inn in Stornoway. I’ll talk about how climbing transformed my life, thoughts on climbing Sron Uladail on live telly with an overdose of painkillers and why climbing is load safer than it looks…
Well, most of the time anyway.
I’m also speaking at this year’s Kendal Mountain Festival in November. On the Friday night I’m speaking alongside Andy Turner at the Premiere of The Pinnacle (The Smith/Marshall ‘week’ on the Ben). On the Saturday it’s ‘Great Climb’ night and I’m co-hosting an evening of talking and film about the making of the BBC live broadcast alongside Richard Else, Brian Hall and Cameron McNeish. Should be fun!
See y’all there.
Labels: Ben Nevis, Lewis climbing, The Great Climb