Birth Pains of New Nations – Pete Oxley
The whims and motivations of climbers really are another world to the person in the street. Understanding them is crossing a threshold, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to start to see the...
Category: Factor Two
Treasured Books
This week I had a chat with Climbing on the Bookshelf about some of my favourite climbing books. These included Hard Rock and the awesome Let’s Go Climbing, by Colin Kirkus.
Hateja – Glenda Huxter and Louise Thomas
If you had to select your late 90s dream team for a British, all-female Himalayan big wall trip, you couldn’t go far wrong with this one. Glenda Huxter was onsighting E7, Kath Pyke had...
Why climb? Here’s a great answer
I get to interview a lot of people about their climbing adventures. One thing I never ask them directly is why they do it. That just seems like such a basic question. George Mallory...
Finding the Balance – Katherine Schirrmacher
I’ve read Katherine Schirrmacher’s blog for years, and she’s unusually good at expressing all of those little things that can affect your motivation or self belief. In this episode she talks about finding the balance
AIPS Awards longlist for Factor Two and 3 Climbing Stories Shortlisted
Factor Two was longlisted in the International Sports Press Association’s Awards for Audio this year.
There are also 3 other climbing stories which were shortlisted in the writing categories.
Podcast Awards nomination for Factor Two
Factor Two has been shortlisted in the Publisher Podcast Awards along with the likes of The Telegraph, New Scientist, The Big Issue, Penguin Random House and more. How cool is that? Our entry included...
El Capitan – a film by Fred Padula – with Richard McCracken
In the spring of 1968 a San Francisco filmmaker, Fred Padula, drove into the Yosemite Valley and gazed up at El Capitan. He was going to make a film about climbing The Nose. Fred wasn’t a climber, but that was the least of his problems in this saga.
Hard Grit – Niall Grimes, Seb Grieve and Rich Heap
When it was released in 1998, Hard Grit gave us an insight into something we didn’t often see – the actual ascents of the hardest, most dangerous lines on grit.
A Play for Voices – Helen Mort and Anna Fleming
When you look at the books on a shelf of mountaineering literature one thing is quickly apparent: the vast majority are written by men. How does that influence the kind of stories we’re drawn to tell or read?