UKC

This week's Friday Night Video takes us to the Arctic archipelago of the Lofoten Islands in Norway, where granite towers pierce through the sea in an incredible landscape of mountains, with quaint fishing villages nestled in the fjords. US climbers Caroline George and Katie Lambert visit the islands for the first time in this film, and their impression of the place matches that of many a visitor to Lofoten...

Read more

In reply to UKC News:

Good stuff - Lofoten was always a place I intended to get to and kept moving further away

In reply to UKC News:

Stunning views, but if I hear one more women-only thing saying "empowered", I think I will implode.

https://www.geographyandyou.com/life/women-studies/women-empowerment-overus...

In reply to UKC News:

Gorgeous. One of the few films that comes close to doing justice to just how beautiful Lofoten is.

In reply to Phil Murray:

I see what you mean, but actually... I think it's spot on in this context and conversation. There are lots of overused terms.. like "wicked", "rad" or "awsome"... at least this has actual meaning

Beautiful footage, but as often seems to be the case with American climbing films, way too much navel gazing.

In reply to GDes:


Yes, I like to see film of people climbing cool routes in amazing places.

No, I do not want to hear about your soul.

In reply to UKC News:

Yaay! The smurfs went climbing!

In reply to UKC News:
Why oh why do they have to spout such inane and meaningless garbage? All this "women empowering women" stuff has gone far too far and in this case unless you cut the sound it really spoils a nice film. Women climb and men climb, we are all just climbers doing what we want to do as well as we can.

In reply to clochette:
I'm
Not sure it's reasonable to say that "women empowering women has gone too far". There's centuries worth of patriarchal oppression that still needs sorting out. If the aim of this video was to empower women, then I didn't get that. I just heard inane, introspective, self indulgent stuff, which is a shame. Would've been nice if it was more about the place.

In reply to clochette:

I don't think it's got anything to do with gender; it's just an American thing - all genders. Probably just some Americans.

In reply to UKC News:

A beautiful, extremely well edited and composed film with some nice conversation about connecting your passion for climbing with other, broader aspects of your life and finding some meaning whilst you're at it.

To the Naysayers: God forbid women feel confident and strengthened through the pursuit of mountaineering and adventure...

In reply to MischaHY:


Nothing really to do with that, it's the inane garbage they come out with to express it.

In reply to UKC News:

Great little film but why did they use Taylor Swift as the voice over. I had no idea she was that deep.

In reply to UKC News:
Lovely video that shows Lofoten in its best light - some very decent routes they did too.

Apparently the autumn up there this year has been a real cracker - pity I was in a soggy Austria!


Chris

In reply to jon:


I actually re-watched it to listen in context that bit about empowerment. Wasn't her point that when you climb in a team of two women, it necessarily means if you fail to lead something you have to rely on your partner, another woman, to do it instead, and that in itself is empowering? OK, its easy to bash the slightly pyscho-analytic terminology, but the point actually seems quite a good one and fits with why some women climbers seem to get a lot out of climbing with other women.

Otherwise, and not aimed at you Jon, they speak like American women of their age, class and region do. Americans speak in a different way to 'us' and it sometimes seems funny because our cultural context is different, hence the piss taking, but it does seem odd that there is more of it when it is women speaking. I find when American climbers like Honnold, Caldwell and others speak and putt "super-" as a prefix to everything, funny/annoying but they don't seem to get made fun of so much.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Agree, not a bad route in there. Nice use of drone footage as well

In reply to TobyA:

The film is, in the end, an advert for a guiding company, so presumably this sort of psychobabbling metabollocks sells in the US. So yes, it is just a cultural thing. British climbers, of course, get the same stuff out of climbing; they just talk about it in much more understated way.

In reply to Robert Durran:
they sounded like typical modern, young americans - if you expect them to sound like middle aged British men you'll always be disappointed.

I need to go to Lofoten again

In reply to MischaHY:



Agreed. It's a beautiful movie showing superb climbing in a beautiful place. As far as the commentary goes, I actually prefer this kind of rather nebulous (but well-meaning and enthusiastic) psychobabble to stereotypical British feigned/affected understatement tinged with large dollops of cynicism. Particularly when it comes from people who probably can't climb half as well as this. Another plus point was that the movie was not wrecked by hideously incongruous music (as is often the case with climbing videos.)

In reply to UKC News:
Other than the slightly kooky voiceover I was struck by the fact that although route names were given - no grades were mentioned. I assume an directorial decision ?

In reply to UKC News:
Nice footage, but it appears to be an advert filmed in 'documentary-style'. It would have been more honest if it had been introduced with "this week's Friday Night Video is just an advert."

Apologies if I've misinterpreted it, but that's how it came across to me.


Edit: See the other 'UKC News' items also from the Eddie Bauer marketing dept

In reply to Wry Spudding:




It seemed no more of an advert than any other gear sponsored climbing film I've seen. If it was trying to make me buy Eddie Bauer kit it failed, it did make me want to book a holiday in Lofoten though!

(I didn't mind the airy fairy voice over, it seemed to tie in well with the music and footage. Good use of a drone and really made me want to climb there)

In reply to Wry Spudding:


If that is that an advert, then I wish that all adverts on ITV/Channel 4,5 were like that.

Fixed it for ya Toby.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

The forecast in Svolvær is epic at the moment, in fact there's pretty much no rain forecast anywhere in Norway for the next 10 days, even in Bergen, and then you know it's dry.

In my experience of living here the past 6 years, September/October often give much more settled weather than June-August.

I'm too busy renovating a house this year to climb, so I hope we get a similar dry spell next year.

In reply to JuneBob:



Good and very useful beta, thanks. Does that include Kvaloya?

In reply to seankenny:

I'm not sure about that; this is very anecdotal, and the weather is very variable up the norwegian coast with all the microclimates due to the varied geography. Also, the historical data for Kvaløya isn't so complete on yr.no. But right now, it's very nice

In reply to seankenny:

I've done maybe 5 weeks up there, often around my birthday, so mid August, and never had big problems with weather. The odd shower now and then, but I don't remember losing climbing days.

In reply to UKC News:
Nice video. Not as bothered about the touchy feely bits as some people are - we can't all be emotionally repressed middle aged punters (a club to which I'm a fully paid up member).
It seems that a lot of the films featuring women seem to come in for this sort of criticism. At least the women don't all behave like Kevin the teenager everytime they fail on something. On the whole I prefer a bit of babbling about empowerment to screechy sweary yelling every few minutes that tends to blight most of the films featuring male wads - a tendency that I've noticed is being picked up by a lot of the (mostly) younger climbers at the crag.

In reply to TobyA: further, in my experience, May is also usually good weather, and early June. August hit or miss, and as stated, September usually good.

July is very often the rainy season, or at least seems it