Other News
- Winter Mountaineering Lecture in Aberfeldy
- The Best of Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival in Glasgow
- International Mountain Literature Festival at Bretton Hall
- The National Navigation Awards
- Exhibition of Mountain Art in Edinburgh
- All Change in the World of Climbing Magazines
Winter Mountaineering in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland
by John Allen
The Locus Centre, The Square, Aberfeldy
Friday 25th March 2005 at 7.30pm
A twin projector slide show of 40 years of experiences in winter conditions, including Glen Coe, Ben Nevis, Cairngorms, the North West, Rum and Skye.
Tickets in advance (cash only, please) £4.00 each from Munros Outdoor Shops, Aberfeldy and Pitlochry. Enquiries by phone 01887 820008.
Main proceeds to support conservation, wild places and the landscape of Scotland
Best Of 2nd Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival 2004
film night – GLASGOW!
Thursday, 24 March 2005
at Tiso’s Glasgow Outdoor Experience store, Couper Street, Townhead, Glasgow.
Tickets £5 available from Tiso. Film programme to be announced – see http://www.edinburghmountainff.com/ for detail.
The 3rd Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival
21-23 October 2005
George Square Lecture Theatre, Edinburgh.
Tickets from Tiso and Alien Rock – available from September. Line-up to be announced – see http://www.edinburghmountainff.com/ for details.
The 18th International Festival of Mountaineering Literature
The University of Leeds, Bretton Hall Campus
16th April 2005
‘WHOSE HISTORY?’
Debunking the mountaineering myths of the past will be Greg Child (US), Chris Jones (US), Bob Marshall (Aus), plus Kaydee Summers, Mathew Entwistle, Jim Perrin and Richard Sale.
In recent years a number of books have appeared that have given us a different version of the history of famous climbs with which we have become familiar. This year’s Festival brings together writers who have been re-examining popular myths in including Desio’s Ascent of K2, Diemberger’s Summits and Secrets and Whillans and Ormerod’s Don Whillans: Portrait of a Mountaineer.
The climax of the day will be a lecture from Greg Child about getting to the truth of the story of the kidnapping of Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden and two friends from a portaledge on a wall in Kyrgyzstan.
Tickets are £25.00 from Terry Gifford, 56 Conduit Rd, Sheffield, S10 1EW, UK, payable to ‘Festival of Mountaineering Literature’. For further enquiries email: terry@gifford9.wanadoo.co.uk or phone Terry Gifford, on 0143 266 8813 after 27 Feb. Fax: 0113 343 9148. The programme and booking form are on our website: http://www.festivalofmountaineeringliterature.co.uk/.
The National Navigation Award
The National Navigation Award is ten year old. Its founder, Peter Palmer designed the scheme to be a personal performance, non competitive incentive scheme for all ages. The levels of scheme are nationally recognised at Bronze Silver and Gold standards. About 6000 awards are made each year.
Each award is taught and assessed at the appropriate technical level by one of our 140 providers. The Gold award is technically hard and equates to the technical competence required of a mountain leader and is based on contour only navigation.
The scheme can be delivered using Harvey maps or OS maps at 1:50 000 or 1:25
000 or orienteering maps at 1:10000 or 1:15000.
If you would like to deliver these courses or participate yourself, please go to our updated website http://www.nnas.org.uk/, or call the NNAS office on 01786 451307, or e-mail info@nnas.org.uk. The NNAS scheme is sponsored by Harvey maps and Recta compasses.
Exhibition of Mountain Art
By Amy Marshall & Laura Drever
Amber Roome Contemporary Art
24 March – 21 April 2005
In 2004, Edinburgh born Amy Marshall was part of a two-person expedition to the Tien Shan mountain range in Kyrgyzstan to climb Khan Tengri, ‘Lord of the Spirits’ - the most northerly peak over 7000m. This exhibition shows a series of her oil paintings worked from the sketches made from expedition.
Born in Kirkwall in Orkney, Laura Drever’s landscape paintings are strongly influenced by Orkney’s unique land and seascapes “to capture these personal, fleeting shifts of mood, pattern and light”.
Opening Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11am-6pm or by appointment
Contact: 75/79 Cumberland Street, Edinburgh EH3 6RD. Tel: Gallery: + 44 (0)131 558 3352; Mobile: + 44 (0)776 555 7338. Website: http://www.amberroome.co.uk/.
All Change in the World of Climbing Magazines
By Kevin Howett
It’s a fickle business, climbing magazine publication. Over the past 15 years there has been a range of titles, some new, some divorces, some deaths and some rebirths. Many of the new titles were born in the 80’s ‘life style’ craze when everything outdoors was suddenly ‘in’. Most disappeared with hardly a whimper on the newsstands – ‘Sports Today Illustrated’ is one I particularly remember, with its soft porn titillation of semi naked women on surfboards, bikes and in climbing harnesses! I kept the first edition for research purposes. Some such lifestyle magazines are still to be found.
For the ‘hardcore’ enthusiast, I remember a climbing fanzine called ‘The Thing’ published by Vertebrate Graphics, which had a “well scary purple issue” and contributions by later seminaries such as Niall Grimes. And who can remember the old ‘Climber and Rambler’, later to become ‘Climber and Hill Walker’ and then merely ‘Climber’ as it shrugged off any connection with those without ‘Friends’. The displaced walking majority got ‘The Great Outdoors’ and the old magazine’s editor Cameron McNeish, and it went on to become the standard by which ‘Trail Walker’ and others could be judged; one the outdoor version of The Herald, the other The Sun!
But the undisputed all time great was ‘Mountain’ magazine which set the standard for style and quality under the editorship of Ken Wilson and Bernard Newman. But climbing was undergoing great diversification and the existing titles were probably not changing fast enough to cater for the newer, younger audiences. Unfortunately Mountain failed to compete and died in 1992. The title was bought, and buried (?) by ‘High Mountain Sports’, edited by Geoff Birtles and its world-renowned coverage of new mountain routes, ‘Mountain Info’, was placed into High magazine.
In 1987, Ed Douglas produced the new and exciting bi-monthly ‘On The Edge’ magazine as a student dissertation - or so the story (myth?) goes. Quality, black and white, and in-the-know, it grew in popularity with the young, changed editor to hot-rock-chick Gill Kent after 13 issues and finally joined the same ‘stable’ as High. It was a hit whilst the others languished in ‘old-timy’. But they all seemed to coexist for a while. OTE changed editor to Neil Pearsons, took on a snappier title ‘on the EDGE’ (a trend that others followed) and gained an unfair reputation as a very colloquial rag; Ed Douglas returned in 1994 for 9 issues of ‘Mountain Review’ to complement OTE; High lost its sporting angle and became ‘High Mountain’ and thinned down to cover as wide an audience as possible to increase its readership; and Climber went through 2 different owners and editors, one of the former primarily interested in Harley Davidson, leather-clad biker and soft pornographic titles. For a while they also published Scottish Mountaineer. It was always our worry they would mix up the images!
Well, its all change again. And in many ways its down to our reading habits. How many climbers are out there? How many buy a magazine? How many just skim read it in Smiths? Certainly a lot more go climbing rather than buy a magazine that tells them what others have been climbing. So the market is small. And with Birtles retiring to the sun it was perhaps inevitable that High and OTE would merge; enter ‘Climb’ magazine, with Pearsons at the helm. The advert blurb says it will be everything to all men and women; whilst Climber, now with ex ‘Mountain’ man Newman as Editor, goes from strength to strength, catering for trad, sport, mountaineering and bouldering – also all things it seems. Will it only be the name that differs - just? Or will design style and written quality appeal to different audiences? You’ll have to try not to get mixed up between the two on the shelves. Incidentally, High’s final issue included topless women bouldering at Stanage – do you see a connection developing here?
Finally, hey presto, another mag hits the street. Its called ‘Friction’ and is quite like a fanzine, with lots of wacky design reminiscent of The Thing. Issue 1 hit England in January with sport, indoor and bouldering the key content. Young dudes in Scotland will have to wait for Issue 3 before subscription and payment online is available, or head over the border.
But there are now alternatives that are gathering pace – the magazines of the various Mountaineering Councils. If all else fails and Scottish climbing is your thing, you can stick with ‘Scottish Mountaineer’ (well, I had to get a plug in somewhere). The English and Welsh get ‘Summit’ from BMC and the Irish get ‘The Irish Mountain Log’. If these fail you too, perhaps you could look on the top shelf?
