Outdoor Video Magazine

Just another quickie for now..this is an awesome promotional video for the Radical Reels section of the 2007 Banff Mountain Film Festival (which is at the end of October). The category is geared towards short movies of high-adrenalin sports (read “short clips of crazy people doing crazy things where they might die or get seriously injured”). It sure makes for great watching! I particularly like the ice climbing moment (yikes) and the back-flipping kayaker (I had no idea that was possible).

Here is an earlier trailer, for the 2005 Banff Mountain Film Festival. This has a bit more of a wildlife aspect…but still features a tonne of great footage of mountain biking, climbing, kayaking and sports you didn’t even know existed (flying in a kayak for example?).

And finally, here’s another trailer. This time for the FULL 2007 festival…not just the adrenalin sports. By now you’ll be sick of that song! There is cross-over in footage between all of these videos..but they are different. I could watch them all day anyway…

Well I’ve found another good collection of climbing videos to post. The first one is Dean Potter making it solo from bottom to top of El Cap in Yosemite in under 4 hours. A mix of free-climbing and protected climbing…it all looks pretty crazy to me.

While we’re on the subject of Dean Potter, I thought I would mention the controversy surrounding his semi-legal climb of the Delicate Arch in Utah. Here is an article that explains in detail what happened during and since the news caused a stir in the climbing community.

This next video isn’t too good in terms of the climbing, a little repetitive, and he’s top roping, but the rock formations are worth seeing. Really unusual, and would make for a cool climb I think. It is somewhere in Washington I believe….

Sticking with the theme of crazy rock formations…here is a great crack climb (5.12) called Anunnaki, located in Indian Creek, Utah.

Having just started running (training for the death race in fact) I know that a half-marathon is a fairly long way. Not too bad though. OK….so do one with a 50lb pack (that’s 23kg). Well it’s still not THAT bad, because now we’re talking about hiking. Hmmm…well how about one of them (or longer) every day, for 50 days, in the mountains, still with that 50lb pack on. Ouch. Now that is endurance.

This is what Lucas Poznanski has planned for this autumn. He is going to hike the 1200km-long Great Divide Trail to raise $50,000 for the search for a cure for cancer. You can check out his pretty snazzy promotional video for it below, and also check out his trip website here:

The Great Divide trail runs from close to the US border, up through the Canadian Rockies, crossing the Continental Divide 80 times or so…finishing 1200km later at a town in North-Eastern BC. This website has some details about the trail, including a trailer for a film made about the trail. Their trip report/blog can be found here.

Good luck Lucas!