BMC Climb Night

We're very excited that Red Bull athlete David Lama will headline ShAFF on the Friday night. The session will be hosted by acclaimed filmmaker Paul Diffley.

First up will be a screening of 3 Women & 3 Old Men, followed by a Q&A session with the filmmaker and the featured climbers. This is a 10 minute film about a trip last year to climb three of Scotland's most iconic sea stacks. The film was one of the entries in this year's BMCTV Women In Adventure film competition (you can watch all the entries from 3 years of this competition here)

Following that will be a chance to watch Shauna & Pete Go Crack Climbing. Thus 13 minute comedy short featured as part of the Brit Rock Film Tour and will also screen as part of Climb Films 2. Shauna is both a Red Bull athlete and a BMC Ambassador. This film was emailed to all BMC members at Christmas and will soon be live on BMC TV

Next will be David's new film Annapurna III - Unclimbed (12mins).

The film will be followed by an interview with David about his Annapurna trip.

We will then have another short film focusing on what David has done since 2012, and another interview piece with Paul looking at this period, and what his plans are going forwards.

The floor will then be opened to a Q&A.

David Lama, or ‘Fuzzy’ as he is known to his friends, was born in 1990 to an Austrian mother and Nepalese father. He was just five years old when Himalaya-veteran Peter Habeler first saw him climb, spotting his natural talent. As a junior, David Lama did it all. In 2003, aged 12, he conquered an 8b+ route – the youngest climber to achieve this in the history of the sport (aged 15). David was junior world champion and twice winner of the European Youth Cup. With that, he took the step up to senior level and became the youngest ever competitor in a climbing World Cup event.

David took second place behind Italy’s Flavio Crespi at that World Cup event. Not content with second, the he topped the podium at the second attempt before doing the same at the third time of asking at his home event in Austria. In 2008, David became IFSC World Cup champion in both lead climbing and bouldering, but as of 2009 has decided to leave the competitive world of climbing behind in pursuit of personal climbing ambitions, shifting his attention to free climbing and alpinism.

It was 2012 that brought David his greatest triumph. After travelling to Patagonia, he realised his dream of making the first free ascent of the south east ridge of the famous Cerro Torre. He described this achievement as “probably the greatest adventure I experienced in my life so far". In 2013, David and climbing partner Peter Ortner were honoured with a 'special mention' at the Piolet d’Or awards in Chamonix, Francem in recognition of their first free ascent of Cerro Torre. The stunning story of their climb was immortalised in the 2013 movie, Cerro Torre – A Snowball's Chance in Hell, which went on to become a hit.

David might have hit the big screen, but he wasn't content to sit back and soak up the limelight – 2013 also saw him complete the first winter ascent of Schiefer Riss on the Sagwand in Tyrol, Austria, alongside friends Hansjörg Auer and Peter Ortner.

The climbing exploits just keep coming for David: he set a new route in 2015, when he conquered the Avaatara in Lebanon (8b), and in 2016 he's been taking on a series of multi-pitch routes in the Swiss Alps.

Annapurna III – Unclimbed

'It took the Austrian team three days to climb up to the point British climbers Nick Colten and Tim Leach reached when they first attempted the line in 1981. Only the first day was in ideal conditions though – the remaining two days literally sucked everything out of the experienced alpinists.

“On almost all pitches, difficult mixed climbing forced us to hang our ice tools onto our harness and resort to direct aid,” Lama said. “Due to the cold, the wind, and the strong snowfall, we climbed in full winter outfits. In an uncomfortably tight chimney, I inched a few feet up, and as I couldn’t move any further and lost grip with my crampons, slid a few feet back down.”

Imagine sliding down a rock face with zero tolerance for error?