The news of an eight-year-old climbing El Cap (well, jumaring El Cap), brought back a few memories from climbing El Cap with my Daughter when she was 12. And so I thought I’d share the story again, plus include the BBC film that was made of the climb (I paid for mine and Ella’s flight to the US, so the film was more about capturing the experience with good friends – Paul Tattersall, Ben Pritchard, Aldo Kane – rather than fame and fortune). I could write a long article about making a doc for the BBC, but the best thing that came out of it was how big an effect it had on kids, and for a long time afterwards, people would come up and ask if I was “Ella’s dad”. A Norweigan friend summed up why kids liked it, as well as the problem with modern TV, was that “it likes to make films about people finding easy things hard, not hard things easy”.
That was lovely, thanks! I had to chuckle about this: "The first person who needed to be convinced was Mandy, Ella’s mum. I left this task up to Ella, knowing full well the persistence of a child is the greatest force in nature to change an adult’s mind." Smart man...
That was lovely, thanks! I had to chuckle about this: "The first person who needed to be convinced was Mandy, Ella’s mum. I left this task up to Ella, knowing full well the persistence of a child is the greatest force in nature to change an adult’s mind." Smart man...
Fantastic!