Mountain Adventure Holidays
For many UK mountain lovers the annual Kendal Mountain Festival is a permanent fixture. It was a great pleasure this year for Tracks and Trails to be part of the action both as a guest speaker in the Mountain Running Session and in the Hood To Trail trail running film premiere.
Every November the Festival organisers use this platform to bring together thousands of outdoors enthusiast plus media industry specialists, athletes, mountain guides, top brands & equipment manufacturers, artists, photographers, writers, explorers, adventurers and inspirational speakers to 'share their adventures'. Their vision is simple to 'inspire more people to explore, enjoy & represent mountains, wilderness & their cultures.' Read more About KMFF. The Festival programme of films, speakers and events is always very impressive running over four full days over several venues. The central 'hub' is the Brewery Arts Centre where there is a great vibe! There is a tented village, free talks and brand interaction stands where it was great to catch up with our partners Montane. Read previous blog News from Montane.
At the heart of the festival is the international film competition where over 100 films are screened (from 240+ entries) all with outdoor content over a broad range of categories from; culture, drama, wildlife, environmental documentaries to extreme mountain sports. Tracks and Trails guides (myself, Al Bignell, Vic Chelton and Mark Jensen) were delighted to work as trail running guides on one of the films directed by Katie Moore Hood To Trail premiered at the festival. The film focus was to take running crews from London, Amsterdam and Copenhagen to Chamonix to run in the Alps! Taking them totally out of their comfort zone over two days, our city born runners learnt to mountain trail run with us!
We ascended over 2000m, stayed overnight at a mountain hut and helped them to discover a new sport. It was a superb project to work on, helping them achieve things they previously had not even imagined, lots of laughs and great to meet new people. I've kept in touch with several of Charlie Dark's London rundemcrew who I am delighted to say are now all totally hooked on trail running! We've already met up again to run in the Peak District and have more plans ahead.
Each year the Festival also brings together a variety of speakers and presenters. I was invited to speak at the Mountain Running Session hosted by Simon Freeman to talk as an ultra runner, guide and trainer on the Columbia stage. Along with Jonathan Albon, Ultra Skyrunning Champion, Spine Race winner Eoin Keith, solo adventurer Jenny Tough and the 2018 top 5 UTMB finisher Damian Hall we shared stories and experiences on training, racing and mountain adventures from all of our different backgrounds and perspectives.
It was not only a great buzz for us to be apart of the Festival but also inspiring to meet so many like minded mountain people including; friends, colleagues and many guests from our trips. We already looking forward to next years festival line up and of course the social.
Julia Tregaskis-Allen