Favorite Climbing Slide Shows?

I saw a Kor show 20+ years ago, and it was great. So many classics, it nearly wore out of my ability to be boggled by the achievement. And, with Layton coming into town this week it got me thinking about some of the other great climbing shows I've been lucky enough to see. Chime in and rant on all you oldsters, hipsters, and newbies. Here's a few of my other favorites- in no particular order.

Royal Robbins: all the black and white hero shots, plus necky kayak descents. very comprehensive.

Warren Harding: wit and one-liners.

Wolfgang Gullich: cutting edge routes. so scary and intense, you wanted your chalkbag while watching the show.

Reinhold Messner: melded the gorgeous and the outrageous as he pushed the limits.

Celebrate Eldorado 1998: good pictures, comedy, and a wheelchair.

By far the best show I've ever seen was Ed Webster's Neptune show this year. His early exploits at the Creek, his story of soloing the Titan in the rain with no ride home, and how he thought of the name for Scenic Cruise were just gold. The story of the accident in the Black was touching, and I felt so privileged to hear him talk firsthand about that. That guy is really, really cool.

I missed all of those shows, unfortunately.

The Jonny Copp and Micah Dash show about the route they did in Kashmir with the AAC’s Lyman Spitzer Cutting-Edge Award funding was a great story. They threw in a quick run up the 1938 route on the Eiger as well. The climb itself was pretty impressive, and done in fine alpine style. But the interactions they had with this heavily funded Italian team was what made the show entertaining. The Italians were quite miffed to be second in line to put up a route on this peak, so they pulled every trick in the book to get the two lad's permit pulled, scorned them whenever they met, and in general sent bad vibes their way. But the duo kept up a positive Zen attitude and sent their intended line without mishaps. To their surprise, the Italians didn't have much success with their siege tactics.

I too will have to say Royal Robins, I had the honor of hanging out with him for a few glasses of scotch after the show too! Then with out a doubt, John Varco's show the last day of the 2007 Ouray Ice Fest, now that was debaucherous, no Zen b.s., just Metal(lica). It was a show for people who want to climb good, and do other things good too- like shoot guns and light fires.

I have two, many years apart.

1. The same show mentioned above of Johnny Copp and Micah Dash.

2. Bill Forrest giving a slide show at the old Holubar store in 1980. It was a show of the climb of the east face of Uli Biaho (1979) in the Karakoram, with John Roskelly, Kim Schmitz and Ron Kauk. 34 pitches, 10 hanging bivouacs.....hard core!

Photo courtesy of ClimbandMore.com

Line is number 2 in photo, first line up this beast

What elements of the presentation make a good slide show?

What advice/tips/ideas/critiques would you provide for a show?

Are there certain things that have bugged you about past shows, or other aspects that you wish had been emphasized?

If you are referring to the quality of the slides themselves, then no list would be complete without Galen Rowell.

For the presentations in general or from the content in the show there are many. You mentioned Messner, I would also suggest Michael Kennedy, Kurt Dimberger, Mark Twight, Chris Bonnington, Simon Yates, Joe Simpson, Erik Weinenmayer, Jonathan Waterman, Ed Viesturs, David Breshears, there are probably others that I just can't remember.

I thought Galen Rowell set the gold standard for slide shows. They were so slick and well rehearsed, they were in a category by themselves. It takes such a huge effort to create such shows, few people bother. I can remember going to his shows, and being totally blown away. It is so sad that people cannot experience his shows any more, I wonder if any of them were ever recorded somehow?

But sometimes a slide show that is unrehearsed and spontaneous can be very good. Derek Hersey had such a laid back style, entirely the opposite of Galen Rowell. Two person shows can also be fun by people with very different personalities. I remember some great "Desert Rock" shows by Fred Knapp and Bret Ruckman where they would be ribbing each other to great effect. There was also a remarkable Royal Robbins/Warren Harding joint slide show at an ancient AAC meeting that was really fun.

It seems, though, that the era of traditional slide shows is ending. Or are digital shows not much different? I suppose the fading and music that used to require 2 projectors and specialized timing equipment is much easier.

Being a slide-show noob, (I've only seen 3 of them), I'd have to say that my favorite has been the one at Neptune by Marko Prezelj. His accomplishments are amazing, his pictures were incredible (he's a professional photographer by trade), his narration was entertaining/humorous etc. Overall it was a great show.

The only other two I've seen have been by Ed Viesturs during a book signing a couple years back. It wasn't that great, he's a salesman, and was promoting his sponsors. The worst was by two dudes that work at Neptune who gave a talk about some alpine routes in RMNP. Their slides were horribly out of order, they couldn't remember the names of half the routes they climbed, the routes they climbed were lame any way, lots of slides showing them bouldering in Glacier Gorge, slides of them drunk & half-naked were interspersed within the show, and they ended the night with slides of them dancing at a club. WTF?!?! The music was horrible as well and the CD skipped most of the time.

I had the honor of seeing Royal Robbins about 7 years ago in Tulsa, OK of all places. A Sun&Ski store there used to bring in great speakers every year for an annual climbing event they would host(Lynn Hill, Pete Takeda, Scott Backes). The great part (for us climbers) was that no one out there knows who these guys are, and the place would be pretty casual. That same show in CO would bring out the mobs. Not only did Royal give a great presentation of his climbing and paddling feats, but he then spent time just hanging out with everyone afterwards. I was impresssed with how openly he spoke about his marriage and how he encouraged family values. He even brought his own posters (FA on Salathe Wall), signed them with a personal message to each person that wanted one, and gave them out for free. I was a fan of the climber before I walked in, but left a fan of the man himself. Very cool guy.

Cody

When the General came to Neptunes in the mid 90's and showed everyone what was down in El Potrero Chico, that was bad ass! Kurt has so much energy that you couldn't help but get amped on a trip south of the border. Plus at one point in his show, he cranked up some hard pounding rock music and stopped talking, just blasting through slides. Unfortunately the people in front of his speakers suffered permanent hearing loss!!

The most fun had to be Derek Hersy's shows. His dry British wit and the crazy solo shit he would do were wicked entertaining. He could drink beer like no other climber I have met. At one show, I was sitting close and he asked me to fill up his beer glass from the keg whenever he ran dry. I spent so much time running back and forth to the keg that I wore out 2 sets of shoes! I miss that guy!!

Kelly Cordes puts on a great show. Saw him in Ouray 2008. Great sense of humor, very down to earth, great stories, and some fabulous shots. Especially Cerro Torrre with Colin Haley tunneling through the summit mushroom.

Kevin Zagorda wrote:Kelly Cordes puts on a great show. Saw him in Ouray 2008.

Crap! I forgot about Ouray. I saw Ines Papert give her show there this past January...it was really good as well!

I'm a little biased since I booked a lot of the shows under discussion when I worked at Neptunes. Aye, drank a lot of Toothsheath at Derek's shows.

George Bell wrote: Two person shows can also be fun by people with very different personalities. .

Lest ye, forget Todd and Paul's show after the Salathe...great on their own but they fed off each other that night. Another good one was Doug Scott describing the Ogre accident a week after Chris Bonington talked about it. Brad and Barb Washburn gave a great talk in Banff one year. Listening to Charlie Houston, Bob Bates, Dee Molenar, and Pete Schoening reminisce about K2 was priceless.

I saw Reinhold's show 8 times; he and Chris are the consummate professionals. Saw Joe Simpson give his 5 times and it always got a strong crowd reaction (alas, he'll never come back to the US thanks to Atlanta customs). Warren Harding was certainly one of the funniest. Actually didn't care for Galen's shows that much, too polished. Twight had lousy taste in music and his ego didn't quite fit in the room; Breashear's ego is even bigger. Royal does a good job but Yvon is even better.

Among the worst: Walter Bonatti, Kurt Diemberger, and Jeff Lowe -- great guys, terrible shows. Lynn was bad at first but got better with practice. Anatoli was hard to understand the first couple shows but his bad-assnes won out.

Fred Beckey, hands down, was suberb, and at still kick my ass at his age!!!

Doug Scott and the Ogre, forgot about that one. That story caused me and all of my climbing buds at the time to give Doug the "Hardman of the Century" award. If you ever think that the human body and spirit are not capable of herculean feats, read about this amazing epic and wonder at the man's inner strength.

I saw dave nettle in yosemite last month, very good!

Hands down, BILL FORREST. holy shit, that guy is amazing. The adventure climber's climber.