UKC

A Walk on the Wild SlideFri Night Vid

© David Linnett

Our Friday Night Video this week is A Walk on the Wild Slide. The walk being The Devil's Slide (HS 4a) on Lundy and the wild being Johnny Dawes. The film looks at Johnny's attempt to climb the classic Hard Severe without hands. Filmmaker David Linnett told us:

'It was an absolute hoot to team up with and film the legendary climber, showman and all round nice guy Johnny Dawes on Lundy Island. This was at the most excellent BMC Lundy Climbing Festival, which ran for a week over the August Bank Holiday into early September. On his first ever visit to the Puffin Isle, he wanted to attempt a hands free "walk" on the lead with pre-placed gear up the island's classic climb called "The Devil's Slide".

Johnny came up with this fantastically outrageous idea whilst we were "bivvying" in Bideford long stay car park the night before we sailed and fortunately I had my filming gear with me, so a plan was soon formulated. All we needed was a couple of mates to help out the with the logistics and the weather to play ball. So on a bluebird but blustery Friday September 1st, with the wind getting ever stronger just to add to the excitement, Johnny started his walk up the Devil's Slide...

A humongous thanks goes out to Johnny for being an absolute star and huge fun to work with. Whilst a massive thanks for all their invaluable help goes out to James Mann, for his assistance with the rigging plus additional camera work and James Rennardson for his super speedy belaying.

Anyway, here's a wee video from the day (with some aerial drone footage) capturing one of the UK's greatest ever climbers to lace up a pair of rock shoes, on his attempt to "walk" up one of Lundy's iconic landmarks on the classic climb of the island. I have seen one or two things in 25 years of climbing but this was something else!'


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9 Dec, 2017
Hey Wanderer100 thanks for taking the to post some kind feedback and the Devil's Slide, amongst all the other amazing climbing on offer on the magical Lundy Island is well making the effort to get the MS Oldenberg ferry over! Incidentally I only stumbled across this other thread about my wee video recently so I guess for the sake of completeness here it is: https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=674950&v=1#x8684553 Cheers Dave
9 Dec, 2017
Hi Dave I posted the other thread, hope you don't mind. It's really nice to see such high quality films being made about UK routes in grades that most people can have a go at. Really nice pieces of film making.
10 Dec, 2017
Hi GP many thanks for your kind words and as Oscar Wilde is reputed to have said, all publicity is good publicity! My next video is nearly finished so look out for the Armorican One Armed Bandit coming soon... :-) Cheers Dave
10 Dec, 2017
No problem. Looking forward to the next video.
11 Dec, 2017
Just brilliant and lovely, thanks!
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