A look at the list of speakers attending this year’s adventure festival on the edge of Derwentwater
Running, climbing, art and film will all feature at this year’s Keswick Mountain Festival in a varied schedule bringing some of the UK’s biggest names in outdoor adventure to the Lake District town on 9 and 10 June.
Chris Bonington will be talking on the Saturday
Hitting the ground running on Friday 9 June will be fell runners Jasmin Paris and Nicky Spinks (main image). In May 2016, Nicky Spinks became the fastest person ever to run a double Bob Graham Round, completing the feat in 45 and a half hours. She followed this by finishing 12th woman at the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc (UTMB), adding the result to an already impressive list of long distance achievements.
Jasmin Paris also enjoyed an amazing 2016, setting new women’s record times for both the Bob Graham Round and the Paddy Buckley as well as the fastest time overall for the Ramsay Round. Along with these achievements she’ll also be discussing winning the Berghaus Dragon’s Back Race the previous year.
On Saturday 10 June, the focus of the speaker sessions will move to art, film-making and iconic climbers. The first speaker will be artist Andy Beck. Inspired by Alfred Wainwright, Beck has undertaken a major, 10-year project of producing a watercolour sketch of each of the 1500 illustrations drawn by Wainwright in his seminal seven volume A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells. Andy will tell tales from his extraordinary odyssey and provide insights into how the scenes have changed in the 50 years between Wainwright’s project and his. You can see some of his stunning pictures in his six-page feature in the April issue of The Great Outdoors (order online here)
Mountaineering legend Sir Chris Bonington will also be there on the Saturday. He’ll be relating his extraordinary and very personal story of a life-time of discovery, pushing the limits from his first climb at the age of sixteen through to repeating his epic first ascent of the Old Man of Hoy at the age of 80.
Capping off the day will be the double act of mountaineer Alan Hinkes OBE and award-winning filmmaker Terry Abraham. They’ll be discussing the documentary they’re working on together, a biographical film of climbing legend Alan Hinkes.
Tickets for the speaker sessions start at £10 and will be on general release from Thursday 9 March. Along with the speaker programme, Keswick Mountain Festival will host a range of outdoor activities, live music, sport and family friendly attractions, running from 8-11 June. For more visit www.keswickmountainfestival.co.uk.
