If it's Friday then it must be time to get in touch with your inner ice climber :-)
It's Friday, it's five to five, so it must be the Friday
Matinee, our priceless but free gift to your empty Friday
afternoon hours as you countdown the minutes to the weekend...
This week with Scotland having more than its fair share of wet,
rained-on, avalanche prone snow and possible 95 mph winds forecast,
we thought we'd go to Barbados, oh, no we didn't, we thought we'd
have a look for some ice climbing - the most fun you can have with
your crampons on...
Oh, and don't panic, we're not going to show you that flippin'
cartoon bear again...
For starters here's some footage from the last legendary Ouray
Ice Festival, competition climbing on ice. Commercialised, but
kind of fun and how did those graphiti kids get up there...
Seems light years away from legendary climber Charlie
Fowler back in the early 90s when ice axes still had leashes and
climbers weren't plastered with sponsors' logos. Warning
interview footage...
And here's another departure, bonkers French ice climbers on a
virgin M8 routes, that's mad mixed part ice / part rock.
Warning climbers speaking French.
And some more proper hardcore modern water ice, Beat Kammerlander
goes crazy swinging on the chandliers... and look, he appears to have
forgotten his rope. Hmmm...
Finally, it used to be the case that on ice, you simply didn't
fall off. No-one told these guys that - Ouray again... Not like the
old days when folk took proper leader falls, nooo...
And if you're really bored, there's lots, lots more where that
came from, we're just scratching the icey surface. Have fun :-)
