Saturday Morning
7 December 2024: 9.30am – Tickets £8
This session includes the Irvine Butterfield Memorial Lecture, presented in conjunction with The Munro Society. There is a tribute to Irvine at the bottom of this web page.
This year, we are delighted to introduce as our speaker Alex Roddie, describing “The Cape Wrath Trail in Winter“. Before this though, we have, as always, a great selection of Scottish films.
Drawn to the Mountains
UK 2023: Director – Roxanna Barry – 7 minutes
Why are we drawn to the mountains? What compels us to create and share art inspired by our adventures and experiences in nature?
Tessa (she/her) is an artist and designer who lives in Glasgow; she regularly heads out to the Scottish highlands to explore and connect with the mountains. Set in the snowy Cairngorm mountain range in winter, Tessa takes us on a journey, exploring her thoughts on these questions and bringing us into her creative practice.
This film is supported by The Grampian Club
Thrawn
UK 2024: Director – Hannah Bailey – 14 minutes
Thrawn is a new film brought to you by Patagonia documenting the resilient and passionate Cairngorm snow community in the Highlands of Scotland and their unmatched dedication to snowsports.
In the Scottish Highlands, the word “thrawn” means “stubborn,” but stubborn for a good reason—a virtuous struggle to make the most of what’s available. Professional snowboarder Lesley McKenna was raised on this innate tenacity, and has spent her life pushing the boundaries of her sport and advocating for the people and place that shaped her.
Like many other mountain areas across Europe, the Cairngorms are facing the impact of environmental and economical challenges first-hand to snowsports and the culture. But motivated to fight for what they have, the community are coming together to find ways to protect wintersports and the playgrounds for generations to come.
“We’re going to have to roll up our sleeves and do it for our god-damn selves. Because nobody is coming to do it for us.” says Lauren MacCallum, activist and board member of the Cairngorms National Park Authority.
“We can have it all, if we just work together.”
Director Hannah Bailey explains: “the Cairngorms breeds a special kind of folk who make do with what they have, and make use of every opportunity out there. In times of environmental and societal uncertainty, this community virtue of adaptability and resilience is more important than ever. This story is an example of that.”
Three Wheel Drive
UK 2023: Director – Stefan Morrocco – 47 minutes
THREE WHEEL DRIVE is an inspiring film about three physically disabled cyclists: Neil, John, and Caroline. They embark on an extraordinary journey to reach and stay in a remote bothy in the Highlands of Scotland, overcoming hardcore challenges on the route. The film demonstrates how, through planning and determination, they conquer their fears and anxiety, venturing into the hills to do something that is relatively ordinary for most but extraordinary for people with physical disabilities.
For individuals with complex needs, bothies present real challenges, yet the team illustrates how one can surmount these obstacles with careful consideration and a can-do attitude. The film delves into genuine emotions, portraying Caroline’s overwhelming joy at seeing the Scottish mountains again after 23 years, following her disability caused by a virus. The exhilaration of being amidst the hills and embracing the physical challenge leads John to momentarily forget about the pain and hurdles he’s faced since his cycling accident four years prior. Neil, an inspiring leader, finds himself overwhelmed by the opportunity to explore the hills with like-minded friends, an experience he thought he would never encounter due to his spina bifida since birth.
Their journey isn’t just about conquering the challenges of the bothy; it encompasses the physical trials along the journey and the hazards they encounter en route.
There will be an interval at this part of the morning.
This morning’s talk is presented in association with The Munro Society as the Irvine Butterfield Memorial Lecture. See more information about Irvine’s contribution to both The Munro Society and the Dundee Mountain Film Festival.
Alex Roddie – The Cape Wrath Trail in Winter
Alex Roddie is a professional editor and award-winning outdoor writer. He is editor of Sidetracked magazine and an author with Vertebrate Publishing. He writes features, and gear reviews for The Great Outdoors magazine.
His writing focuses on mountains and wild places – their wonder and mystery, nature and adventure, but also their culture and both fiction and non-fiction.
Alex has been an active backpacker, mountaineer and hillwalker for over 20 years. Since 2015 he has been a passionate long-distance walker and has completed many classic trails, including the Cape Wrath Trail (summer and winter), Tour of Monte Rosa, Haute Route Pyrenees, and a fastpacking traverse of the Alps.
At Dundee he will relive his adventures on the Cape Wrath Trail in winter, which he has also written about in his book “The Furthest Shore”.
Alex has a great website https://www.alexroddie.com/ and from there you can subscribe to his regular blog posts.
Irvine Butterfield
A Tribute to Irvine Butterfield, by John Burdin, on behalf of The Munro Society (originally published in the Munro Scociety Newsletter August 2009 (Number 19)
The Munro Society (TMS) founded in April 2002 has already established a role for itself within the Scottish mountaineering scene. Irvine Butterfield was a prominent member of the group which came together in Perth in 2001 to discuss the possibility of forming such an organisation for those fortunate enough to complete ascents of all 284 mountains with summits of at least 3000ft in Scotland – the Munros.
The idea gathered momentum after a dinner in Pitlochry in 2001 to celebrate the centenary of A E Robertson’s completion as Munroist no.1. Irvine completed his round of the Munros in 1971 – becoming Munroist No.105. He actively chaired the Steering Committee formed to take the Group forward and plan the Inaugural Meeting at the Bonar Hall in Dundee on April 20th 2002. Irvine’s achievements were already legendary in Scotland (and beyond) not least being his acclaimed books “The High Mountains of Britain and Ireland” (1986), “The Magic of the Munros” (1999), and “The Call of the Corbetts” (2001). He was unanimously elected as our first President from 2002-04.
Early in his Presidency he described TMS as “a society in which we can all take an interest and pride as we take our first tentative steps to secure a permanent and worthwhile role in the realm of Scotland’s 3000ft peaks”. Irvine’s sterling performance over two years gave TMS the best possible start – his enthusiasm was boundless, his personal commitment phenomenal, his encyclopaedic knowledge and understanding of Scottish hills (including those who worked and played amongst them) was inspirational to all who worked closely with him during these critical early years and he had an apparently endless supply of entertaining stories.
A key strength in Irvine was the encouragement he gave to individual members, particularly those on the Executive Committee, to initiate and develop their own ideas and strategies. At virtually every committee meeting he would produce one or more papers which he had typed and copied, to illustrate whatever point he was raising -and always in a most professional manner.
Following his Presidency Irvine’s commitment to the Society went from strength to strength, as did his desire to ensure quality in all that he did on the Society’s behalf. His active ‘hands-on’ involvement, along with Lain Robertson, in the Glenquoich Estate’s footpath maintenance project on Gleouraich (which started in 2003) continued annually until his health deteriorated. He fully supported TMS commissioning Jim Closs to produce a video on Footpath Maintenance for use by clubs throughout Britain via the auspices of the MCofS and the BMA. This was followed by a series of TMS videos, made by Closs, on Early Munroists; the first involved Irvine interviewing Jim Cosgrove (Munroist no.56 and then 91) about some of his memorable days on the Scottish mountains. These experiences vividly captured aspects of the social history of mountaineering in Scotland -as did the next in the series when five other Munroists, (who ‘compleated’ between 1956 and 1968) were involved.
Then in 2008 Irvine himself featured in the third Early Munroists video – this will now enable future generations of mountaineers and TMS members to have a rare insight into what made Irvine so special to all who were privileged to know him well. He continued his 100% support of Society events and activities such as the Annual Dinner (despite increasingly poor health he was at Strathpeffer in October 2008) and Munro re-visit meetings from the first to Beinn Dorain (November 2003), to Torridon (July 2004), to Kintail (April 2005) where he was bitten by the warden’s dog on arrival! and to Ireland for a week in September 2006.
Other notable contributions that Irvine made included donating very considerable amounts of material to archives; representing the Society on various organisations such as MCofS, the Perthshire Alliance for the Real Cairngorms (PARC) and supporting links with RSPB/BTO Scotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and the National Trust for Scotland; initiating and organising the very successful week-long exhibition “A Celebration of Mountains” at Blair Castle in October 2004 and again in November 2005 at the Dundee Mountain Film Festival; actively supporting the concept of a ‘health check’ on the state of the Munros at the start of the 21st century which quickly led to the Mountain Quality Indicator project – the first phase of which ran from 2003-09 (all of his inimitable reports will be preserved in our archives for future generations to ‘enjoy’); and participating in the 2007 heightings of Beinn Dearg and Foinaven (where he struggled a bit but made it to the summit!).
This tribute to Irvine, on behalf of all the members of the Society has to end with this acknowledgment that Irvine, born in Yorkshire (near Skipton), was from head to toe a true “Tyke” whose heart and soul were nevertheless totally committed to the beauty and welfare of the Scottish Highlands. His memory will live on in the hearts and minds of those of us privileged to have known him personally and in his writings, photography, and wide-ranging achievements to those in generations to come.