Video Review: A week in Yosemite

Another week goes by, the weather changes, and we find ourselves back in the gym wondering why we have jobs and are not on the road full time at this time of the year. Trying to get psyched back into training mode today I was looking around the internet for a video that might try to inspire me to try harder. On the blog KearneyJourney, I came across a rad video by Walker Kearney with footage from this November in Yosemite. What a cool video! I met Walker and his sister Prarrie on my very first trip to Bishop seven years ago. At the time, Walker and I bonded over our hatred for the problem Iron Man Traverse, as both of us tried it for two days without prevail. Since that time, Walker's climbing has grown by epic proportions, with his eyes on big prizes all over the states and Europe.

So what makes this video so rad? The first 4 minutes of the movie begins with a montage of clips from hard problems and people falling off the top outs of a number of classic problems in Yosemite. It reminded me of the old slam sections in skateboarding videos years back and it really got me psyched to go out and try harder on the rock. Walker did a great job of editing these clips to get the maximum exposure of the variety of the problems in Yosemite, not to mention the music track chosen to keep you on the edge of your seat. The video finishes off with showing some start to finish climbing on a number of fine highballs, skipping through the boring top outs with some fast forward and keeping the viewer interested.

So where are climbing videos going in the future? Years back ,when I was in high school my friends and I were piecing together skateboard videos in our parents basements, with single sections on each riders, slam sections, and intros that would make you laugh your ass off. It was all a huge movement towards where skateboarding videos have gone now. However, the formatting of skate videos has not changed that much since then. So will climbing go the same way? Will we stick with the same formatt for climbing videos as we have seen time and time again? Will I continue to sit through long self absorbed interviews and even longer top outs? or the homemade video that only captures one angle? or are people going to start mixing it up already?

On a side note, if you have not been to the BIG UP site in while, you should check out their new video Tis the Season. These guys are getting really technical with their shots and the quality of their videos and it is paying off big time.