Monday 26 January 2009 - The Best of Banff

After a rest day from skiing....

Yes we do help with the housework in our home from home!

...we spent the evening at the cinema, in front of seven films selected for Ottawa by the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour.

Here's their trailer:

The films were aimed at the 'adrenaline junkies' in the audience, rather than those looking for a cultural or environmental bias.

We were introduced to a multi-talented red helmet, a piece of Scottish rock covered in chalk, and a full length film about some BASE jumpers tackling a jump down a big hole in China - very impressive that hole was too.

During the interval an attempt was made to distribute minor items of gear (not up to the standard of my new hat, Phil) as prizes in a raffle for which everyone had been handed tickets. Unfortunately, as the numbers in the 'hat' didn't often match those held by members of the audience, this was a fairly long drawn out and tedious process.

Then we enjoyed more adrenaline fuelled film-making, with images of acrobatic cycling (the highlight being a ride along a chain-link railing), kayaking from the underground source of a river in Papua New Guinea to the Pacific (down some stupendous rapids), climbing on some sandstone towers (no chalk this time), and heli-skiing down unlikely looking slopes (rather steep).

We returned, exhausted, for hot chocolate and Christmas cake at Woodroffe Towers, all set for our more prosaic (not sure if that's the right word) skiing tomorrow.

The World Tour For Adrenaline Junkies will visit the UK later this year, but dates and venues have not yet been announced.