Fleece and Gore-Tex takes over the Royal Geographical Society for the first of this year's Mountain Hardwear Lectures, but what was it like? We entered the hallowed portals for a top mountaineering evening
The hallowed Royal Geographical Society used to be stuffed full of
bearded Victorian chaps in tweed jackets and full tropical regalia,
last night though it was overflowing with a bunch of scruffy herberts
in fleeces mixed in with a smattering of smart city
suits.
The occasion? The first night of this winter's Mountain Hardwear
Lecture Tour, billed as am evening of 'Total Mountain Experience'. It
was almost as crowded as Everest Base Camp in there, sold out with
around 700 people, and according to the RGS bods, the first event in
living memory there to fill the impressive new auditorium.
Each night of the tour plucks three speakers per venue from a core
group of six MHW-sponsored climbers and for London we got Kenton
Cool, Simon Yates and the unique Andy Kirkpatrick, between them
dragging the mountains into London's over-populated centre.
Alaska By Taxi
Cool kicked off. One of a new generation of lightweight alpinists,
he was hotfoot and jet-lagged off a plane from the States and so
nervous that his lazer pointer was wobbling like a novice on his
first lead.
But as he eased into his stories of ultra-lightweight
mountaineering in Alaska with some incredible slides and some nicely
weighed up jibes at the expense of load-hauling American mountaineers
on Denali's normal route, he gradually relaxed and took the audience
with him into an environment that looks both awesomely remote but is
paradoxically incredibly accessible by air taxi direct to
basecamp.
Cool's presentation was so gently understated that it was easy to
forget the difficulty of the routes he and partner Ian Parnell were
tackling, including the second ascent of the Denali Diamond, which he
presented as a sort of spur of the moment impulse fuelled by a bottle
of whisky. Amazing stuff.
Hello Sailor
Next on was Simon Yates. He's best known for his role in the whole
Touching the Void episode, but is of course an incredibly
accomplished mountaineer who's now been climbing, travelling and
guiding for years. By way of contrast, his lecture focussed on a sea
yacht-based expedition to the Tierra del Fuego area of Patagonia to
climb a mountain, the location of which seemed a tad sketchy.
The yacht, by the way, belonged to Celia Bull, Paul Pritchard's
ex- who effectively saved his life on the Totem Pole, something Simon
said, with dry understatement, that had put her off climbing.
Together with Andy Parkkin, Yates trekked through dense forest then
across a glacier to climb his mountain in what he compared to classic
Scottish winter conditions. He finished with some wistfully
beautitful sea shots of an incredible sun rise.
In Patagonia
After an interval, Andy Kirkpatrick, self-styled 'Britain's
leading aid climber' took the stage. In reality though, Andy doesn't
just take the stage, he somehow manages to grab hold of the entire
auditorium and pull it into a different, weirdly-hued world where
tents explode in 200 mph winds and shivering through Patagonian
winter nights is quite normal and almost fun.
Quite simply, Andy's a natural showman and - despite some glitches
with his cunning twin-carousel slide show arrangement - his
combination of relaxed, curiously wired, brilliantly-timed cracks,
phenomenally dramatic shots of Patagonian winter climbing epics and
terrifyingly realistic wind impressions, effortlessly beguiled the
audience.
Andy's so self-effacing and so effortlessly entertaining that it's
easy to forget just how desperate and downright hard the experiences
he's describing must be, then a small detail catches your brain and
makes you pause for sober consideration before Kirkpatrick's
breakneck lecture express drags you off once more.
Put simply, he's a must see, and if you do get the chance to see
Andy lecturing, don't miss it.
There are still four dates to go: Edinburgh (October 31st at
George Square Theatre), Glasgow (November 1st at the Mitchell
Theatre), Bristol (November 7th at the Watershed Theatre) and finally
Manchester (November 8th at Manchester University).
Tickets are £8.00 each and you can get them either via the
ticket hotline 01285 643434 or via this
page on the Cotswold Outdoor web site which also has details of
which speaker is appearing at which venue. Well worth it we
reckon.
