SMF Blog – Day 1

Just sitting in the Howe Sound Brew Pub drinking some liquid protein (Baldwin-Cooper ale), after catching the first evening of the SMF.–nice start organizers. 
    Unfortunately work delayed me in town so I missed Margo Talbot’s presentation 🙁 Her story of climbing out of the gutter from drugs, depression and jail sounded inspiring. On the rainy, grey drive up I was thinking how easy it is for life to get you down, but climbing has an almost magical way of lifting you up. Margo fell further than most of us but managed to start climbing higher and higher. Saw Mike Schauch founder of  Climb For Change there. Margo’s story speaks to what Climb for Change is all about.
   Jasmin Canton was up after the intermission. What a good life perspective she carries with her. She talked about her expedition to S. Greenland with Kate Rutherford. Rain, rain and more rain diminished her optimism a little but didn’t faze her. Their ascent of two large walls bookended rain and mist. Funny moment was when she talked about foraging and eating mushrooms, they ended up being the non edible kind but the photos she took afterwards were kind of psychedelic.
Anybody see the nice photo essay in National Geo this spring? There was a short film tonight profiling the photog Jimmy Chin, who shot the feature.  They showed him rapping off El Cap with all this photo gear. Then to get a shot he pushes himself out and lines up his subject squeezes the shutter then gets ready to hit the wall.
They also showed the short, Boggie until you Poop, by Cedar Wright. It captures the moment a very hung over Jason Kruk craps his pants after getting his knee stuck in the wide crack of Boogie until you puke on the backside of the Chief.  It’s very funny but am I the only one that feels the whole thing was kind of staged for film? 
That about covers it for Day 1 of the Festival. I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the photo shoot out by top climbing photographers, and hopefully a little sunshine for climbing 🙂
One more thing, ran into Peter Winter from the Access Society. He was telling me they got a list of small jobs for the Volunteer Trail Day on Friday. The more people who come out the more they can knock of the list. And he hinted the draw prizes are really good and plentiful. So turn up and have fun.