We’re excited to announce that Beth Rodden, widely regarded as one of the greatest rock climbers of all time, will be headlining this year’s speaker line-up!
An American climber and globally recognised ambassador for the outdoor community, Beth has accomplished numerous notable free climbs on El Capitan, the iconic 1,000m granite monolith in Yosemite National Park. In 2008, she made history with the first ascent of Meltdown, one of the world’s most challenging traditional climbs, marking the first time a female climber had reached the pinnacle of the hardest climbing grades.
Beth’s inspiring story also includes surviving a harrowing ordeal during a climbing expedition to Kyrgyzstan in 2000, where she and her then-boyfriend, Tommy Caldwell, were held hostage by rebels for six days. The pair escaped after bravely overpowering one of their captors and reaching safety at a Kyrgyz army camp.
Beth has recently published her memoir, A Light Through the Cracks, which has been met with widespread acclaim. During the festival, she will present in Wānaka and Queenstown, as well as at our Central Otago Youth show.
We’re also stoked to have local adventurers Nick Pascoe and Sam Smoothy joining us for this year’s festival. Nick will be speaking about his 2023 mission using skis and packrafts to cross from Raspberry Flat in Mt Aspiring National Park to the Tasman Sea following a direct route around Tititea/Mt Aspiring and down the Volta Glacier and Waiatoto River. According to Nick, highlights included packrafting amongst icebergs, carrying 30 – 40 kg packs, 250 metre an hour bush bashing, and a tiny portion actually skiing. Sounds like a classic Kiwi adventure!
If you’re a Wānaka local and/or love skiing and the mountains, then chances are you know the name Sam Smoothy. Growing up skiing at Treble Cone, Sam spent six years both entertaining and terrifying followers of the Freeride World Tour, skiing the sketchiest of lines and bagging multiple victories culminating in a second overall ranking in 2014. Leaving the competition scene behind in 2016, Sam has travelled the globe, creating films and crafting stories from his far-flung travels to Boliva, North Korea and almost everywhere in between, as he brings his freeride flair into the heady realm of ski mountaineering. He joins us at the festival to share tales from his latest project “XXIV”, a wildly ambitious attempt to climb and ski all 24 of New Zealand’s named 3000m peaks.
We’re stoked to welcome these remarkable adventurers to the festival. Their diverse experiences, ranging from wild NZ epics to far-flung expeditions, promise to deliver a programme of exhilarating and insightful stories. Expect solid backcountry banter as well as deeply personal journeys. Don’t miss a show!