It's not often you get to gawp at a pair of boots that have been
sitting high on Everest for decades, but there they are in
the flesh, or should that be 'in the leather', George Mallory's
nailed climbing boots, bleached in the sun, torn by the wind, but
indisputably reaching out from the past to send a shiver down your
spine.
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Recovered from Everest - George
Mallory's boots.
Shivers down the spine.
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And that's what it's all about really. It would have been easy for
the Helly Hansen National Mountaineering Exhibition to fall into the
trap of being dry and lifeless, but the designers have made a real
effort to bring the mountains and the past to life.
We took some typical journalistic cynicism along with us when we
dropped in on the Exhibition at the remarkably buried Rheged Centre
in the northern Lakes, but we finished off enthusing about the blend
of ancient climbing history and modern audio-visual presentation.
As you enter the exhibition you're confronted by a big circular
panoramic photo of Everest taken by Leo Dickinson on his balloon
flight over the mountain and from there on, you follow a 'time line'
through British mountaineering history. At key points along the way,
short five-minute videos narrated by John Peel - he went to the same
school as Mallory, apparently - present a layman's view of
mountaineering interspersed with archive shots.
It's
all here: Whymper's ice axe, which is a monstrous five feet long, the
familiar sepia prints of gentlefolk clambering all over Mont Blanc,
Alex McIntyre's rucksac from Cho Oyu, ancient oxygen sets, original
leather boots shod with the legendary tricouni nails and hey, an
original Chouinard Curver ice axe belonging to Chris Bonington and
used on the first ascent of Annapurna in 1970.
Remarkably, a lot of these priceless climbing relics were lying
around in garages and attics till the BMC came up with the idea of
the exhibition and George Band's ancient high altitude wind suit even
has traces of emulsion paint on it...
The Peel commentary actually works pretty well. Peely is his
normal dry but avuncular self as he plays the straight man to a
variety of top mountaineers including Bonington and Band who, at
appropriate points, explain what it was really like up there in the
death zone. But what really carries the day are clips from old
climbing films atmospherically projected onto flapping tent fabric
screens.
But as we said, for most people the real crux is the glass-encased
display of relics from the Mallory Expedition - the absurdly heavy
looking steel oxygen set, the boots, fragments of letters, a Whymper
tent used by Mallory and Irvine's wooden ice axe. Mind-blowing stuff
and a massive contrast to the high tech kit we use today. It's a
place to feel just a little awe-struck.
Appropriately enough after an interesting video featuring the
likes of Andy Kirkpatrick, Leo Houlding, Airlie Anderson, Stuart
Parnell and Dave Birkett talking lucidly about what drives them to
climb, the whole thing finishes up in an artificially chilled base
camp tent. It's okay, you can borrow a HH down jacket, as
artificially generated draughts set the tone for a film composed of
evocative footage of the successful 1953 ascent of the mountain by
Hillary and Tenzing. Fantastic stuff. You find yourself wondering
what Mallory would have made of it all...
Worth It?
Too right. It would have been easy for this whole thing to have
fallen into the trap of being a dry jaunt through the dusty corners
of obscure British climbing history, but a lot of effort's gone into
making it into a lively experience. You can meander throught the
relics and read through the wordy sign boards, but equally you can
simply gawp and enjoy the videos.
As a wet weather option in the Lakes, it's fantastic, especially
when you consider that you can also take in the astonishing Everest
iMax film on the same site.
Details
You can see the HH National Mountaineering Exhibition web site
here
which has some interesting features in its own right, but it's
incredibly easy to find. Simply take the A66 towards Keswick from the
M6 then take the first left at the first round about you come to for
the Rheged Centre. Opening times are 10am to 5.30 pm daily,
£5.50 for adults (£3.50 for BMC members) and £3.90 for
kiddies plus family deals available. You can also pick up a ticket
which also includes a viewing of either Everest or Shackleton for
£9.45 or £6.55.
Plus there's also Rheged
itself, bar, restaurants, craft shops and even a gear shop should
inspiration strike. Plus at the exit to the exhibition, you can buy
Nepalese products, the profits from which go to help Doug Scott's
Community Action Nepal charity. Great for Christmas pressies.
Hint...
richard bradley
