It’s just over a week to go until the Kendal Mountain Festival gets under way, and this year’s event promises to be the most action-packed yet. Between the 15th and 18th November, the attention of the UK’s mountain community will be firmly focused on the Cumbrian town of Kendal, which plays host to the UK’s biggest mountain festival.
Having grown and developed rapidly over the last few years, the festival now presents a packed programme of film screenings, talks and lectures, advice workshops and evening entertainment that includes the Mountain Equipment Pub Quiz and the Rab Party night – and this year Trek & Mountain is supporting the event for the first time as a media sponsor.
For anyone interested in tales of adventure and derring-do (that’s all of us then..) there’s no shortage of options at the KMF. Among those giving talks are the likes of Andy Cave, Andy Kirkpatrick, Chris Bonington, Doug Scott, Fred Beckey, Tim Emmet Kenton Cool and Stephen Venables to name just a few. Talks related to recently-released books include Gordon Stainforth’s Fiva and Simon Yates’ The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword (or Swiss Army penknife), and the literary theme continues with the award ceremony for the prestigious Boardman-Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature on the afternoon of Friday 16th.
There’s a huge line-up of adventure film screenings, starting with the free festival opening ceremony which showcases amazing footage from this year’s films. Premiere’s include Hot Aches Productions’ Wide Boyz which tells the story of ‘two climbers who searched out the widest, dirtiest and hardest offwidths that this planet has to offer’ and has received widespread acclaim on its release. Add to all this free training advice on the climbing wall and alpine skills sessions with the British Mountain Guides and a 5k run started by Olympic triathlete heroes Jonathan and Alistair Brownlee and you’ve got an unmissable few days. We’ll be going, and we hope to see many of you there!
RELATED LINKS
www.mountainfest.co.uk