Climber Patrick Edlinger visits various climbing areas in the American West, including Joshua Tree (routes and bouldering), Yosemite (bouldering), Hueco Tanks (bouldering), and Smith Rock (routes). He is seen climbing alongside Russ Clune, Ron Kauk, Jean-Paul Lemercier, and Todd Skinner in numerous sequences accompanied by Native American-inspired music composed by Benoît Fromanger. Less well-known than his two previous films, "La Vie au bout des doigts" and "Opéra Vertical," it remains a benchmark for all climbing enthusiasts and admirers of Edlinger, the world's most famous climber. His familiar voice provides narration throughout many sequences with iconic phrases that encapsulate the man, such as: "Climbing, this useless thing to which I dedicate my life."
In 1966, John Harlin II died while attempting Europe's most difficult climb, the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland. 40 years later, his son John Harlin III, an expert mountaineer and the editor of the American Alpine Journal, returns to attempt the same climb.
July 1956: like every summer, the actor and cellist Maurice Baquet temporarily deserts the stage and the cinema studios to go to Chamonix where the mountaineer Gaston Rebuffat is waiting for him. A few days later, the two men achieved a historic first, that of the south face of the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m), a magnificent wall rising like a rampart above the Vallée Blanche. July 1988: to pay tribute to the memory of his friend Gaston, now deceased, Maurice Baquet once again climbed this wall suspended between heaven and earth with the man who, 50 years his junior, is considered one of his best contemporary mountaineers: Christophe Profit.
In a vertiginous sequence, Claude Lelouch's camera follows Patrick Edlinger climbing with his bare hands one of the routes of the spectacular Cimaï cliff. The action takes place in the Consensus voice (7c+/8a+) at the Cimaï quarry. In a place large enough where Claude Lelouch had been able to take out his crane to make a vertical trip. Later, in 2013, the foot of the Consensus route will experience landslides, the climbing sector has since been prohibited by municipal decree, huge blocks threatening to fall.
A "team of savages," as their boat captain Bob Shepton calls them, comprised of Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll, Olivier Favresse, Nicolas Favresse, and Ben Ditto, set off for Greenland to attempt a first big wall climb. Arriving in Asia by plane, they prepare the sailboat for two months of self-sufficiency. Accompanied by whales, seagulls, and icebergs, they train on various rock faces before beginning their ascent of the seemingly impossible wall. It takes them 11 days to complete the climb, braving bad weather, the rock itself, the wilderness, and three different bivouac sites—all accompanied by music, of course! The return journey is not without its challenges, as they must avoid a cyclone and cross the Atlantic to reach Oben in Scotland.
Passion Extrême
In a battle for El Cap’s coveted Nose speed record, rock legends Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold go head to head with Yosemite dirtbags Jim Reynolds and Brad Gobright. Highball bouldering ace Nina Williams flexes her guns and tests her nerves well into the no-fall zone. In rural Utah, conservative Mormon coal miners collide with an influx of out-of-town climbers - with surprising results. And two adventurous Brits, Hazel Findlay and Maddy Cope, pursue first ascents in wild and remote Mongolia.
Chris Sharma's latest masterpiece in Mallorca, Black Pearl, could be his hardest deep water solo yet, joining his earlier routes Es Pontas, Alasha, and Big Fish in the pantheon of iconic "psicobloc" lines. Follow his journey to bring the project to life, along with side trips to rad new crags, and mega sessions with Matty Hong and Jernej Kruder vying for the second ascent of the spectacular Big Fish.
It is 1 p.m. on June 30, 1982, when Christophe Profit, 24, shows up at the foot of Les Drus with his pof bag, his climbing shoes and nothing else. He will try the west face of Les Drus in "solo", in the Mont Blanc massif by "Directe Américaine", 1100 meters of vertical and smooth rock. Christophe will achieve the feat of climbing the wall in free solo, without using a rope or any belaying technique. At 4:10 p.m., barely more than three hours after the start of his ascent, the new climbing star can embrace the Virgin of the Drus at the same time as the career of a high-level mountaineer. Three years later, on July 25, 1985, he climbed the north faces of the Matterhorn, the Eiger and the Jorasses in the same day. Awarded at many mountain film festivals, this great documentary is a magnificent testimony to one man's passion for climbing, the mountains and adventure.
Alpine Essentials is a training film which shows the essential skills and techniques necessary for Alpine mountaineering and climbing. It follows two mountaineers on a multi day trip in the Swiss Alps. See how they cope with their environment and what steps they take to both enjoy the experience and return safely. Filmed in Switzerland in the Summer of 2006 the skills covered are appropriate to all glaciated terrain.
Self Rescue for Climbers DVD is a comprehensive guide to problem solving in climbing situations, it is aimed at the problems recreational climbers may encounter whether climbing on multi-pitch sea cliffs, mountain routes or road-side crags. Chapters include: good belay practice simple hoists escaping the system abseil safety prusiking and equipment testing also included is a staged Holyhead cliff rescue and a DMM factory visit - the DVD was filmed on location in Malham, Gogarth, Tremadog and the Llanberis Pass.
Once again, Masters of Stone breaks through to the cutting edge of the sport. Harder, Faster, Bolder, Newer, and more...six points of breakthrough in all.... where human edges toward the superhuman. This is the Super Bowl, Olympics, and Boston Marathon of rock climbing, all rolled into one. More than any other sport, rock climbing continually redefines its rules and resets its limits. Yesterday's impossible becomes today's warm-up as advances in mental and physical mastery combine to break new ground. Every few years the Masters of Stone series delivers a new episode that captures these breakthroughs in a tasty mix of music, character, commentary, and above all, visual action.
In this retrospective tribute, acclaimed filmmaker Jean Walkinshaw hails the 100th anniversary of Mount Rainier National Park in Washington by talking to those who know it best: the scientists, naturalists, mountain climbers and artists whose lives have been touched by the peak's far-reaching shadow. The result is a harmonious blend of archival material and high-definition footage celebrating an icon of the Pacific Northwest.
4 young strangers, all war refugees, unite to take on the challenge of summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro, one of the seven summits and the highest peak in Africa. They have been brought together by the charity INARA to shed light on the impact of war on children. The mountain always has a lesson, and often not what we think or expect it to be. Not all will make it to the summit, some will be forced to face dormant personal demons. This is a story of physical and emotional adventure, the rollercoaster of life, and the possibilities that emerge when we stand together.
Eric Escoffier, la Fureur de Vivre
An international team of climbers ascends Mt. Everest in the spring of 1996. The film depicts their lengthy preparations for the climb, their trek to the summit, and their successful return to Base Camp. It also shows many of the challenges the group faced, including avalanches, lack of oxygen, treacherous ice walls, and a deadly blizzard.
Rotpunkt documents the advent, the agony and the art of the redpoint through Alex Megos’s efforts to redefine the boundaries of the form. The film traces the redpoint—which transformed rock climbing from an engineering problem into a brilliant test of mental and physical strength—from its origins with a ragtag bunch of tights-wearing revolutionaries in rural Bavaria, to its golden era with Wolfgang Güllich, to its new ideal in the German phenom Megos as he battles to unlock new levels of human potential.
An anthology of award winning climbing films, this collection chronicles a decade of adventures in both Yosemite Valley and Stoney Point. Two of the most historic climbing areas in America.
Roc'n Wall 97
Vertical Opera is a documentary film directed by Jean-Paul Janssen, with climbers Patrick Edlinger and Jean-Paul Lemercier in the Gorges du Verdon. The film opens with a training sequence of Patrick Edlinger then he links the routes with Jean-Paul Lemercier "L'Ange en décongelation" (7a), in which he falls voluntarily to demonstrate the usefulness of the rope, then "Le Septième Saut" (7b+). Finally, the final scene, an anthology, consists of a close-up of Edlinger who climbs free solo and barefoot the route "Débiloff", still in the Verdon, above hundreds of meters of void, all to lyrical music. It is "Wie Furchtsam Wankten Meine Schritte", the aria for alto voice from Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata BWV 33, music not unrelated to the subject of the documentary: "How faltering and fearful my steps were".