I went to watch Dirty Gold War at the Graduate Institute at lunch time today. The film is interesting because it makes you think about the environmental impact of gold mining. We’re familiar with the stories of gold mines in South Africa. We’re familiar with the stories of the gold rush. We don’t often think of the environmental impact of Gold mining in rain forests in Latin America. This documentary introduces the topic well.
Wehike is a website dedicated to find people with whom to hike. People can contribute hikes to wehike and then they or other people can organise events based on the hike information. This includes a GPX file and images. At the moment this site is in beta so they are looking for user feedback. At the moment they are based in Switzerland but they will be able to expand globally as people contribute hikes and other people participate in these hikes.
The Swiss Television archives shared this nice news item about how to prepare a fondue from 1969. It’s nice because we see the old way of preparing a fondue with the fluid burner rather than electric heaters. We also see the ingredients being placed in the caquelon.
The Golden Dream, known in Spanish as The Golden Cage is an observational film that follows three teenagers as they travel to Guatemala along railroad tracks north towards the United States. During the journey they need to work to make money, face attacks from the police, immigration police and gangs. When one of the characters finally arrives in the US he works cleaning a slaughterhouse after the workers have finished their shift.
Yesterday afternoon after two top rope climbs in Dorénaz we drove to the Via Ferrata de Saillon to climb this one. It is a via ferrata that I know well. This time I decided that I wanted to try the third part of the Saillon VF once again. What makes the third part special is that it is marked as TD+, more than very difficult. This is a more technical climb for people who are familiar with the sport.
Sylvain Saudan was at the FIFAD event on the final day from 11am onwards both to project two of his films and to speak about his experiences as a pioneer of extreme skiing. During the conference he presented his film about the Grandes Jorasses descent as well as his trip to Denali. If you go to his wikipedia page you will find information about all of his first descents with skis.
When we watch the news and when we read articles from France we often hear about the disadvantaged youth and the mischief that they get up to. Par-Delà les Hauteurs, shown at FIFAD, is a documentary about a team of youths who go to the Alps and experience the mountains for the first time. The aim later in the film is to go to the Himalayas and experience the high mountains.
During the FIFAD event I was invited by one of the people I was working alongside to try paragliding. This is a sport that I have thought about trying for more than a decade by now. Many years ago I bought a book about the theory of flying parapente and I have often watched them take off from places like the peaks near Lucerne, from St Hilaire du Touvet, land close to home and more.
The fourth Day of FIFAD could have had the banner of youth and children of Alpinism. It began with a conference by Swiss university students who had travelled to Siberia for their projects, a short documentary about the actress who played Heidi in the recent film, disadvantaged youth who went to the mountains to help on a farm, The Makers of Dreams about the Geneva CAS branch and how it encourages young people to experiment with Alpinism and trekking.
FIFAD Day 2 FIFAD’s second day’s documentaries were introspective. They looked at mining in Bolivia, Jean Troillet’s life of adventure and the film Sherpa. [caption id=“attachment_3257” align=“aligncenter” width=“660”] The peaks we see from the Festival[/caption]
Tous Les Jours La Nuit Tous Les Jours La Nuit is a documentary by Jean-Claude Wicky who passed away recently. The documentary looked at the lives of Bolivian miners who have to work for up to 20 hours a day in mines where the air temperature can reach up to 50°c, where the life expectancy is between 40-45 years and where they barely earn enough to live.