2019 Gunks Climbing Film Festival Weekend Schedule

Mohonk Preserve Visitor Center — 6PM to 9PM

 
Free event hosted by the Mohonk Preserve with food, drinks, gear raffles & more! This year we are excited to welcome world-renowned Alpinist and Sterling Rope athlete Freddie Wilkinson as our honored guest of the evening!

Freddie Wilkinson will be presenting:
A Line On the Map: The Siachen Saga
Film: Rinpoche Speaks

In 1968, a telegram from the U.S. Embassy in Delhi arrives on the desk of a cartographer in the Office of the Geographer, an obscure group inside the U.S. Department of State. Six months later, the Federal Government secretly shifts its policy regarding the depiction of a fifty-five miles of boundary between India and Pakistan in an obscure corner of the Karakoram Mountains. The errant boundary depiction neatly cuts in half one of the world’s most stunning mountain landscapes – the Siachen Glacier, the place of roses, and sets the two countries on a course towards conflict over the uninhabited wilderness.

In 1975, the Government of Pakistan begins to allow foreign mountaineering expeditions into the Siachen. Soon after, an Indian mountaineer starts to lodge competing claims of first ascents of the same geographic mountains as had been climbed from Pakistan, claiming the glacier is Indian territory….

In April, 1984 the Indian Army launches Operation Meghdoot, seizing the glacier by military force, and the Siachen is transformed into the highest battle ground in the world.

Featuring extensive research, from recently declassified Government documents to a first-hand account of the highest lethal combat in human history, and a visit to the front lines with the Pakistan Army, this presentation is the culmination of five years of work by writer and climber Freddie Wilkinson ’02. Equal parts real life spy thriller, a fascinating case study of a major foreign policy blunder, and mountain adventure saga, the story will be published in National Geographic Magazine in 2020.

This is the first night of events of the Gunks Climbing Film Festival sponsored by Rock & Snow

Join us at the Rock and Snow Annex parking lot in New Paltz for a complimentary continental breakfast to give you the sending power you need! Breakfast will be served from 8:00 am to 9:30 am while supplies last.

Stay tuned for more details.

Free climbing clinics from 5 to 6pm.

• Tips for Leaders w/ Joe Vitti of Vitti Mountain Guides.
• Self Rescue w/ Chuck Boyd of Mountain Skills Climbing Guides.
• Multipitch Efficiency Skills w/ Eric Ratkowski of Alpine Endeavors.

For more information and where to register, see the Rock and Snow Events page.

The event we’ve all been waiting for! Doors open at 6pm, program starts at 6:45pm. Get there early for a good seat and a chance to compete in the Furnace Industries Gunks Grunt and Sterling Rope Coiling contests!

Go to the Gunks Climbing Film Festival page for all the details!