The Kendal Mountain Film Tour 2016 reaches The Chrysalis Theatre this Saturday (Sept 24).
Each year the very best films from Kendal Mountain Festival are hand-picked to travel the world on the Kendal World Film Tour.
Audiences across the UK and around the world get to experience the essence and inspiration of Kendal with a selection of action sports films, and a selection of films covering mountaineering cycling, gritstone climbing in the Peak District and the increasingly popular fell running will show at the Willen venue.
Here’s the how the film clips break down:
Tom (mountaineering) Spain 67’
Tom Ballard is the first person ever to solo climb all six major north faces of the Alps in one winter. He says he climbs to escape – just like his famous mother Alison Hargreaves, who died on K2.
In the last winter season (2014/ 2015) Tom was picking his way down the western flank of the Eiger in what should have been his greatest moment.
On the descent, Ballard started noticing pieces of helmet scattered among the rocks and snow.
Then, he saw the body of a male off-piste skier, slightly older than him, who had fallen and smashed his skull open on an exposed rock. He was already dead, but it took the helicopter an hour to winch his body off the mountain.
“It was the first time I’ve seen a body on the mountains,” says Ballard.
“That put a dampener on the whole thing. It served to remind me that I was very lucky to be able to go up and down safely.
"At any time the mountains can take our lives from us. It’s a very cruel world, you know.”
Come on Eileen (cycling) UK 20’
The incredible story of a cyclist from Coventry who was once hailed as 'the greatest of all women riders' is being told on the big screen.
Eileen Sheridan was a rocket in the saddle in the 1940s and 50s and the 90-year-old is still president of the Coventry Cycling Club!
There were no women’s races in the Olympics during her heyday but she paved the way for the likes of today’s female Olympians such as Victoria Pendleton and Laura Trott.
Short film Come On Eileen will tell her remarkable story right from her early Coventry touring club days to her celebrated, record-breaking professional rides, the story of Britain's outstanding female cyclist whose dedication enabled her to take on the greatest challenge of all, the battle against her own mind.
Stonnis (gritstone climbing ) UK 61’
Climbers have been coming to Black Rocks, once known as Stonnis, for 125 years.
They've always found the climbing desperate and they've always said that they'd never come back.
This is a film about those who do return and the special routes that make them glad that they did.
The movie Includes palm-sweat-inducing footage of Mark Rankine on the Dawes classic Gaia E8.
“I had all these sequences written down and they all just went out the window. I couldn't get any of them to work,” Mike Cheque said about the film.
“In April 2014 I found myself at Black Rocks for the first time in ages. I was injured and reacquainting myself with my local crags. Conditions were great and I soloed across the crag enjoying routes that I hadn’t climbed for years. In many cases, neither had anyone else.
“I’d had in mind for a long time that I would start making climbing films; not the throwaway, silent films that I’d dabbled with in the past but proper ones that people that weren’t in them would want to watch. As I struggled in the chimneys and gullies I was struck by the impetus to record these experiences and so promote this undervalued place.
I worked my way round to the sunset-lit west wall and the feeling only got stronger. It got stronger until my film was finished fourteen months later. One of the most valuable lessons I learnt from the experience was the infectious nature of enthusiasm.
Nicky Spinks ( fell running ) UK 19’
A breast cancer survivor completed a 132-mile fell run across the Lake District's highest peaks in less than 48 hours.
Nicky, 49, is only the second person to complete a double Bob Graham Round, in a record time of 45 hours and 30 minutes.
A complete single round is a 66-mile circuit of 42 summits within the space of 24 hours.
The West Yorkshire farmer faced the challenge to celebrate beating cancer.
"My main aim was to celebrate the fact that I am still here, living and running 10 years after being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer,” she said.
Screenings start at 2pm, and all tickets are £10. Click https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/
