Berghaus to focus on adventure, accessibility and athletes
With busy programme at Kendal Mountain Festival
Berghaus will present another packed programme at this year’s Kendal Mountain Festival (KMF), from 21-24 November. The brand has been involved in the festival for almost 25 years and will once again bring its athletes and products to Kendal. Focusing on adventure and accessibility, the Berghaus line-up will include films, speaker sessions, outdoor activities and a kit showcase in Basecamp, and will feature the likes of Leo Houlding, Ed Jackson, Waldo Etherington, Niall McCann and Darren Edwards. Sir Chris Bonington and Mick Fowler will also be on hand to meet visitors, along with members of the Berghaus product design and development team.
Friday 22nd November
Complementing the KMF theme of balance, Berghaus will use its stand in Basecamp to showcase adventure, exploration and accessibility in the outdoors. Berghaus will offer the opportunity to get up close and personal with a wide variety of kit that appears in films including ‘Alpha’ and ‘Asgard Raw’, and that is part of the Berghaus Adapts initiative.
Visitors will be able to meet members of the brand marketing, product team and ambassadors, as they drop in over the course of the festival to talk about kit, their own personal stories, insights and experiences. Berghaus will also welcome members of 360 Expeditions, who will also be on hand to talk about their own recent adventures and experiences. Elsewhere in Basecamp, several charities that Berghaus supports will also have displays and other activities, including the Millimetres 2 Mountains Foundation.
Over at Brewery Arts, Berghaus will host not one, but two, film premieres. At 3:00pm, the brand will present Alpha with Ed Jackson and Coldhouse Collective. The film follows three men with life changing spinal cord injuries as they attempt to become the first all-disabled team to make an unsupported crossing of Vatnajokull, the largest ice cap in Western Europe. Linked together by a single rope and without any help or guidance, they embark on the journey as a united team.
At 5:30pm, Berghaus will present Asgard Raw with Leo Houlding and Waldo Etherington. In the summer of 2023, Leo travelled to Baffin Island with Waldo and Wilson Cutbirth to attempt to climb a new free route on the Scott-Hennek buttress, which they named “Loki’s Mischief” from where they joined the Scott route to the summit of Mount Asgard. Everything in this film was shot by the climbers and edited into a film by the team at Coldhouse collective. Both screenings will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Miriam Dobson.
Also screening throughout the weekend is ‘Adapt’, a film by Ted Simpson. Recovering from a spinal cord injury can feel like climbing a mountain. But what happens if you have to do it again? Adapt follows the story of three incredible people as they battle to find a new way to live with disability, and with the help of adapted outdoor gear from Berghaus, begin to measure themselves in nature again. The film will showcase as part of the Run & Hike Blue collection from 2:00pm on Friday 22nd November (Brewery Arts, Screen Two) and from 12:00pm on Sunday 24th November (Brewery Arts, Studio).
For anyone who has wondered what a year-long adventure with their family could be like, they can join Leo Houlding at the Basecamp stage. Leo will talk about all things travel, ‘van schooling’ and exploration in a session packed with stories on how he, Jessica, Freya and Jackson are navigating life off road and finding priceless experiences that come along with it, from Norway and Yosemite to Hawaii and Kyrgyzstan. From 4:30pm, the Berghaus stand will host a signing session for Leo’s new book ‘Exposed – photographs of an extreme life’ with Alastair Lee. Copies of the book will be available to purchase, along with the opportunity to meet Leo and get a copy signed.
Sunday 24th November
From 9:30am, outdoors community group hiked.up and Millimetres 2 Mountains (M2M) will team up for a hike with support from Berghaus.
Starting and finishing just outside Basecamp in the Abbot Hall area (just look for the Berghaus flag), the hike will follow the Natland Circular trail, focusing on the mental wellbeing that the outdoors can provide, with M2M helping to facilitate this through breathwork exercises and pauses along the route. Members of the Berghaus and 360 Expeditions teams will also take part in the walk, which will take in the beautiful landscape around Kendal before returning to the town at around 11:30am. The community hike is free to join and tickets are available now via the festival website.
Getting out in nature is vital, but for the 16 million people living with a disability in the UK, access to the correct kit is a major barrier, which Berghaus is committed to help break down. At lunchtime on Sunday, the Berghaus Adapts team will host a motivational session to showcase how adapted kit continues to revolutionise a space which impacts over 24% of the UK population. The session will feature content on the steps that have already been taken over the past five years to help break boundaries, build trust and deepen understanding around accessibility, narrated by leading experts from Berghaus, Alice Sainsbury and Ed Jackson.
The Berghaus booth in Basecamp will be open for business again, with team members and brand ambassadors on hand during the day to welcome visitors.
For more information about Kendal Mountain Festival and to book tickets for festival events, visit www.kendalmountainfestival.co.uk. Follow @berghausofficial (Instagram) and visit the Berghaus Facebook page for updates from the team during Kendal Mountain Festival.
