Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival presents Reel Rock 10, screening Wednesday, Oct. 14 at the Rio Theatre in Vancouver and Friday, Oct. 16 at Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver. Doors 6:30 p.m.; show 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $15 at vimff.org or $17 at the door.
Mount Fitz Roy and its satellite peaks jut out of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field like a row of jagged dog teeth.
Located on the border between Argentina and Chile, Fitz Roy is a modest height compared to the world's tallest mountains, but its sheer granite faces and notoriously treacherous weather conditions make it one of the most technically challenging summits for climbers to tackle.
A relatively small number of intrepid alpinists have ascended the main peak over the years, but it wasn't until recently that two men conquered all seven summits of the Fitz Roy massif in one go.
In February 2014, American climbers Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold completed the first ascent of the Fitz Roy traverse. They chronicled their journey across the dramatic ridgeline in the 37-minute documentary A Line Across the Sky, which is being screened as part of the Reel Rock 10 world film tour. "It's just an extraordinary mountain range. It's one of the most iconic skylines in the world," Caldwell says.
The crossing took five days and covered five kilometres and close to 4,000 metres of vertical gain. Southern Patagonia is known for its unpredictable weather, so Caldwell and Honnold had to wait for the forecast to predict a few consecutive days of high-pressure and low winds. They packed very little, whittling their gear down to just the bare minimum. A pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera was used to collect film footage.
Caldwell, 37, is a professional rock climber who lives near Yosemite National Park. Prior to attempting the Fitz Roy traverse, his alpine experience was limited. He had, however, travelled to Patagonia on three previous occasions and, on one of those trips, followed a route called Línea de Eleganza up the east face of Mount Fitz Roy, so he was familiar with the area.
"I did grow up in the Colorado Rockies where the weather is pretty harsh," he adds. "I did a lot of rock climbing in really cold conditions."
He and Honnold, 30, knew each other through the pro climbing community. In 2012, the pair completed a free climb of Yosemite's three biggest walls - El Capitan, Half Dome and Mount Watkins - in one day.
Honnold had even less alpine experience than Caldwell, but that didn't deter the climbing duo from the mission at hand. So they made the trip down to El Chaltén village, near the base of the Fitz Roy range, accompanied by
Caldwell's wife, Rebecca, and the couple's one-year-old son Fitz (named after the mountain, of course).
Conditions were tough. Due to an unusually wet summer, a lot of snow and ice had built up in the cracks and on the ridges.
"It was pushing it for me," Caldwell says, remembering one particularly difficult stretch where they had to climb through a half frozen waterfall as darkness set in. His clothes were soaked through to the skin and chunks of ice were falling all around him.
"It was maybe one of my first experiences in climbing where I got into something and got to a point where we really couldn't just turn around and make it easier," he says. "The only option was to keep climbing in order to stay warm and not get hypothermic."
Clad only in lightweight, easy-to-pack clothing, the journey could have easily taken a dire turn. "If something happened, like one of us got hurt and we had to stop moving, we probably would have really quickly gotten hypothermic." At night, the pair would shiver for hours in their shared sleeping bag, shielded from the harsh elements by a tiny two-pound tent. As soon as dawn broke, the climbing resumed. During the toughest moments, Caldwell says his survival instinct kicked in and allowed him to carry on. "You push past that point of total fatigue, past what you really think your body can generally withstand or endure," he says. "When your survival instinct kicks in, everything just changes - it gets magical."
Caldwell calls the whole adventure "a mind-blowing experience."
"We lived through it, which was great."
A Line Through the Sky documents an extremely challenging feat riddled with frightening moments, but Caldwell says the film has a humorous side too.
"We're doing a pretty hardcore adventure, but it's sort of a bromance in this funny way and I think that's what people connect to. We're doing something super hardcore but we're laughing through it."
Both Caldwell and Honnold appear in other films being screened at Reel Rock 10. Honnold is in Showdown at Horseshoe Hell, which is about 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell, an annual endurance rock climbing competition held each year in Jasper, Arkansas. Meanwhile, Caldwell is also in Dawn Wall: First Look, a preview for a feature film slated for release next year that follows him and Kevin Jorgeson as they make the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall in the Yosemite Valley.
Reel Rock 10 films:
A Line Across the Sky (37 minutes) Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold make the first ascent of the Fitz Roy Traverse in Patagonia.
Dean Potter Tribute (six minutes) Remembering vertical adventurer Dean Potter, who died in a wingsuit flying accident in May.
High and Mighty (20 minutes) Daniel Woods successfully climbs The Process, a high-ball boulder in Bishop, California.
Showdown at Horseshoe Hell (20 minutes) Athletes converge on Jasper, Arkansas for an annual endurance rock climbing competition.
Dawn Wall: First Look (15 minutes) A sneak peak of Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's free ascent of the Dawn Wall in Yosemite.
