Squamish Mountain Festival Coming mid-July

[squamish climber]

The Squamish Mountain Festival presented by Arc'teryx is back for five days this summer (July 16-20). Plan your road trip around these dates and partake in a great community vibe, hear some entertaining speakers and see some inspiring films.

Once again the lineup looks great.

Local climber Marc-Andre Leclerc kicks things off on Wednesday night with an evening of understated climbing accomplishments.

Thursday MEC sponsors a night of Adventure Films and a presentation by Chris Christie and Josh Lavigne.

On Friday things ramp up a notch for Arcteryx Alpine Awesomeness night with some story telling by Jason Kruk, Paul McSorely and Jesse Huey

Saturday and Sunday the climbing clinics return. This is a great value/opportunity to brush up on skills.

Also on Saturday don’t forget the Climbers Access Society and Squamish Access Society Trail Maintenance Day. If you’ve been climbing in Squamish a long time or even a short time, here’s your chance to give back and make access even better for the community.

There’s more fun on Saturday with the Maxim Ropes Tug-O-War and Five Ten Dodge Ball or de-stress with Yoga in the park.

Saturday night is sure to be entertaining when Alex Honold and Cedar Wright come on stage. Their talk is titled The Sufferfest so I can only imagine the crazy stories they’ll tell.

Saturday wraps up with the Where’s Waldo party, this year at the Squamish Adventure Centre rather than than the Howe Sound Brew Pub.

Sunday the highlight of the day is Flashed Dyno Comp.

For a little psych take a look at last year’s highlight reel:

[squamish climber]

OK so I’ve got a heads up on an inside scoop and few more details.

One of the fun things about attending the festival are the multiple opportunities to score free stuff. This happens at film nights during intermission when climbing gear, packs and other goodies are tossed out into the audience, or awarded as door prizes. There is also a good chance of picking up something in a raffle at the end of the volunteer trail building day.

And now I've just heard about another giveaway. The first 50 people to attend the Where’s Waldo party on Saturday will receive a pair of ARC’TERYX where’s waldo glasses.

And on Wednesday night, Squamish Locals Night, the first 50 people who show up will get a free insulated Innate mug filled with beer. Oh that is good. These mugs are highly prized, check out this local company designing cool outdoor travel storage.

[tobyfk]

Squamishclimbing.com lunched with Marc-Andre recently ... here's a little teaser about what Marc-Andre will be talking about at the festival on Thursday, July 16th.

[hevyduty]

Hi toby young Marc just made the front cover of the Sunday addition of The Provence,theres also an article where Will and Marc talk about soloing!!

[squamish climber]

Thanks Hevy for spotting this, the article does a pretty decent job avoiding most of the hyperbole and incorrect terms you usually see in media pieces. Along with Toby's piece it's nice to see Marc and Will getting a wider profile they deserve. Good going guys.

[squamish climber]

I see there are a few spots left in the climbing clinics, but many are already sold out. As of July 11 Bouldering basics and intro to Rock Climbing were open on Saturday, as well as multi-pitch clinic and alpine climbing skills. Sunday, just the multi-pitch and alpine clinics had openings. But it’s worth checking back they could add more clinics.

Canada West Mountain School as a festival sponsor has been running these clinics for a number of years. They are super popular, not just for beginners. If you are looking to sharpen your skills and learn the most up to date systems --- this is one of the best ways to do it.

There seems to be a good buzz leading up to this year’s festival. I’ve seen a lot of media coverage so I imagine there’s going to be some large crowds out to watch the films and catch the speakers. From past experience, the first few days are some of the best of the festival. It’s a little less crowded which gives you a chance to meet more of the local climbers and chat with some of the speakers from out of town who arrived early to climb and to experience Squamish.

[tobyfk]

With Dave being out of town, I managed to get my hands on the squamishclimbing.com media pass. So it seems only fair to post up some comment on Wednesday “locals night”.

Reflecting on the event I decided it had actually been secretly staged as a kind of “modest-off” between Jeremy Smith and Marc-Andre to see who could downplay their recent climbing achievements most convincingly. Before that, the other end of the spray spectrum was portrayed through a showing of “The Last Great Climb”, the latest of a series of films Alistair Lee has made about Leo Houlding’s expeditions, featuring some hyperbolic narration, dramatic soundtrack with swelling orchestral arrangements and some fancy long-distance camera pans of surreal Antarctic peaks. Overall: a near perfect “10” on the sprayometer.

In contrast Jeremy and Marc worked hard to portray themselves as normal dudes who just happen to occasionally stumble up a badass climb. Jeremy’s approach was a quick-fire slideshow showing all his friends in town but almost never himself, with any hint of difficult ascents being immediately suffixed with a dismissive “good times!”. Marc did a more chronologically-conventional run through of all his adventures in the last year, but tossing in summit sunset photos after descriptions of his big sends, seemingly trying to suggest that “we only do this stuff for the views”. But Marc did slip up by making his big runout lead on “The Last Temptation” sound genuinely terrifying - a dynamic move whilst facing a 100’ fall and pendulum into a corner. So if I had to pick a winner it would probably have to be Jeremy. A close contest though!

PS the above may contain satire and should be ignored. Seriously: this was a great start to the festival and if you weren't there, you missed out ...

[Anders Ourom]

Thanks for another good festival!

The history of these festivals is longer than some may know. AFAIK, the first climbers' festival in Squamish was in 1986, for the 25th anniversary of the ascent of the Grand Wall. It was organized by John Howe and friends. There were are variety of events, speakers and shows over the next while, largely organized by and fundraisers for the Access Society. The next "real" festival was that in 2001, again by John and friends, for the 40th anniversary. Then came the Petzl Roc Trip in 2005, which was quite an eye-opener. The Access Society continued that initiative with a Squamish Mountain Festival in 2006, at which Michael Reardon, and it's continued and grown from there. A great success for everyone.