Steve Backshall's Extreme Mountain Challenge

8pm tonight on BBC 2 , looks like it’s worth a watch .

Ta, no doubt he will have to take his t shirt off at some point.

Will there be peril? Will lives be in danger? Looks like they will, according to the trailer. 🙂

I thought Hamish Mckiness (s) had been up that mountain with number of other well known near do wells of the period? Sure I had a book about it some place. Looks a good trip though, all paid for by the telly people (and others). Shall be watching.

Indeed Hamish (Macinnes) did it.

Well the insects have scared the shit out of me before they even get to the mountain

Blokes a loon… No effin way id be chasing after those spiders!

Scorpion ledge. 😯

Peril , tick
Danger, tick
Shirt off , tick

Bloody great big erection inducing spiders , tick

Was brilliant. The fear in the eyes of many and the tension palpable.

Can not wait for next week.

Blood great big erection inducing spiders , tick

blimey, I don’t suppose you can buy the venom on ebay ?

Really interesting – the fear was real alright! Crazy to try and climb that rock in that condition, but good telly!

McInnes,Brown,Whillan and Anthoine did first ascent of ‘The Great Prow of Roraima’ in 1973. Book ‘Climb to the Lost World’ also a BBC programme I think.

Don’t think it is the same mountain, but very similar.

It had me gripped, really thought they were going to bin the whole climb, they looked scared and beat. I can’t wait for next weeks episode.
I like to think I’d be up for most things (sofa hero 😆 ) but everything about that challenge, the jungle, the terrain, the insects, the weather, the climb, no just no.
Hats off to them.

Enjoyed that, real adventure, real fear.

Got to hand it to Backshall, he really has major cojones, playing around with bloody great big erection inducing spiders, (which would be fine, except for the total loss of sexual ability for the rest of one’s natural), and the world’s biggest wasp, and getting stung by the bloody thing, let alone climbing in those conditions!
It’s not often you see real fear on the faces of professionals who have been doing that sort of stuff for years; as said, proper gripping telly.

I like his enthusiasm, admire his attitude but dislike the never ending shouting at the camera, kids love him though DNF they.

Not sure why they just didn’t get dropped in by a copter’ ? Would have saved all the handicam/shout fest.

I’ll watch all of next weeks though, now they’re on top of it..

why’s everyone got the horn for these spiders?

Weird that they ended up halfway up a difficult climb in an area prone to sudden storms and high winds with no shells or way of getting warm. They’d carted a portaledge and bolting kit up there.

watched on iplayer on commute and just finished over lunch – good programme and some ballsy climbing there.

When the cameraman was overwhelmed briefly at the danger, it made for epic filming.

I will have to download it just to see how sexy these spiders are.

Thats the book ‘Climb to the Lost World’, well remembered bought in my Willans/Brown hero worship phase. Thought it was pretty entertaining telly but that bloke rabbiting about how hard the was climbing was when other fella was at the sharp end.

My mate has been up there

Well that was about a dramatic piece of telly as I have watched in some time.

Just watched it – was entertaining.

Anyone know what the biplane was?

It reminded me of my friend Phil. Typical Londoner, had rarely been outside the capital when I worked with him in the late 80s, early 90s. But about ten years before, him and his mate Pete had heard that no-one had ever walked to Angel Falls. So they tried. And failed. They spent two weeks wading around alongside the river in Canaima National Park, trying to avoid the National Guard who were keen to see that they didn’t die. Then they gave up and spent a week in some luxury resort on an island off the Venezualan coast, then went back to being motorbike couriers and drug fiends.

Antonov An2?
Got a bit fed up of the incessant shoutiness. Spoilt what otherwise was a fine programme.

Anyone know what the biplane was?

Yeah, Antonov AN-2, proper bush-pilot’s plane, along with the DC-3, a rather sad wreck of one they camped at.
Well, here’s a thing! The AN-2’s fuselage is from an Li-2, only cut down by 50%, the Li-2 is a licence-built C-47 or DC-3!
Bloody thing can fly at 35mph… 😯 that’s on a par with a Storch, only a damned sight bigger, biggest biplane in the world.
http://www.bush-planes.com/Antonov-An-2.html

Well, here’s a thing! The AN-2’s fuselage is from an Li-2, only cut down by 50%, the Li-2 is a licence-built C-47 or DC-3!

Good trivia!

I almost bought my father a flight in a DC3 for his birthday a few years ago. He said there was no point because we’d all flown in one on our way to our first ever foreign holiday in Ostend. (Chatting to a bloke who had bombed the airport from a Lancaster in WW2, he said).

And I was worried I might appear to be a complete anorak identifying it as an An 2……… Saved by the Count! 😉
Had a poke around the inside of one a few years ago at the Kemble air show. Rudimentary.

This one lives just up the from me,

Bachshall is always good if a bit shouty. Best piece I ever watched him doing was with a group of Scouts up Cairngorm where it got so cold the cameras gave up, he was a bit quieter then!

How ‘genuine’ do we think this is?

I’m sure the fear is very, very real, but that inital bit of bollocks in the plane – ‘I wonder when we’ll see our mountain? Oh, it’s over there…’ just makes me distrust him.
He has a map, he’s studied the area, he knows where he is.
Why lie, it just makes you look untrustworthy?

Secondly – ‘..we’re trying to stay ahead of the rainy season’.
Oooookay. So why not go earlier or later and avoid it?

You really think they didn’t know the state of the rock before they arrived?
Neither do I.

Not saying he’s a compete Bear, just that I have no idea when he’s lying, exaggerating or actually being honest.

So much admiration for the climbers and crew and I wish I could actually trust the programme – but I don’t think I can.

Still enjoyed it though.
🙂

It rains (lots) all the time in the jungle.. not just during the rainy season!

This suggests he may have done something similar in the area before..

It’s entertainment, and better than a lot of the dross on TV!

Although the fact they are constantly getting aerial shots in HD suggests there’s rather a lot more support there than they are showing on camera!

What? Like a remote controlled drone with a go pro?

Just watched the second one.

Less of the drama and much better for it, IMO.

Shaping up to be good, really looking forward to the rest now I’ve got used to him a bit.

I felt cheated.

When they abandoned the climb and then got in a helicopter to land on another mountain, why didn’t they just land on the one they were climbing, that supposedly hadn’t been touched by human foot before??

Maybe there was no place to land a helicopter?

If they were allowed/able to land a helicopter on the one they were climbing, do you think they would have been climbing it in the first place?

Or abseil from a helicopter onto the one they didn’t manage to climb.