Kendal Mountain Festival 2022 report
- Thursday 24th November 2022
Nick Wharton reports on the UK’s biggest adventure festival, held recently in the Lake District.
It’s November and nearly everyone in Kendal High Street is wearing a fleece or duvet jacket – it must be Kendal Mountain Festival. Once again, the town was inundated with enthusiasts of every outdoor discipline for the UK’s biggest adventure festival. A time for films, speakers, activities, parties and catching up with friends over a beer or two.
Specifically for the climbers, there were two collections of ‘climbing’ films plus two collections of ‘mountain’ films. This is a fairly loose definition with many of the climbing films not really delivering much about pure climbing. Over the past few years, there has been a shift towards films dealing with all manner of issues – all very worthy, but those in search of pure climbing action will be rather disappointed.
The award for Best Climbing Film went to Elevated, a 15-minute film about a deaf climber in California, with no more than a few minutes of uninspiring climbing footage. At least the People’s Choice Award where audience votes were collected across the weekend, went to The Last Forgotten Art, an excellent insight into gritstone crack climbing. Other highlights were Alastair Lee’s Queen Lines and Legacy on the Muir – covering a speed climbing attempt on the Muir Wall on El Cap by the son of first ascensionist TM Herbert.
There were a number of speakers delivering excellent sessions: the highly polished Leo Houlding never fails to deliver; Paul Pritchard was back, as inspiring as ever; Al Lee delivered his Brit Rock Live, which is currently touring the UK. Patagonia presented a Climb Session with numerous athletes, including Shane Ohly talking about his recent successful assault on the Lakes Classic Rock Challenge. Local father and son team Rob and Craig Matheson did an excellent session covering their approach to climbing in the Lakes – Rob at 70+ has recently climbed E7 and over the past couple of years has been reclimbing many of his first ascents on their 50th anniversaries.
This year’s Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature, run in conjunction with KMF, was won jointly by climber Brian Hall for his book High Risk: Climbing to Extinction and A Line Above the Sky by Helen Mort.
Away from the more formal events, the 1,100 square metre Basecamp in Abbott Hall Park provided a focal point with many well-known brands plying their wares and giving away a few freebies. This was also the venue for two mini-stages with their own programme of informal talks, interviews and presentations. The Brewery Arts Centre, once again, provided most of the venues along with the Leisure Centre, Town Hall and Shakespeare Centre.
The event was well organised and certainly continues to attract more and more people each year. 25,000 tickets were sold and many film and speaker sessions were fully booked. All sessions were introduced by the fabulous Presenter Team and the heroes of the whole event are the amazing volunteers who provide information and advice as well as ensuring everyone gets to their seats in a timely fashion. Next year’s event will take place from 16th to 19th Nov – be sure to book early.
For further information visit www.kendalmountainfestival.com