MAY 2025 - Filming climbers on Shelterstone crag in the Cairngorms
A big day out with Britrock films, this time without Al Lee as he was out in Wales filming at the time so sent me on a solo mission. An old friend from Banchory had been trying to get me to take out one of his school pupils who is into climbing and filming. So this would be a perfect day for him, Tavish, as he could help me carry some kit and lighten the 30+ Kg rucsac of mine and also get us a second angle on the climbers.
The climbers we would be filming were Robbie Philips who lives Edinburgh way and Jamie Lowther a local climber to me. I had not met either before but I know Jamie’s Dad John and this came about due to me chatting with him in Aldi’s 5 days before lol.
Obviously the forecast was amazing as it has been for a while now. We walked in Coire Snetchda and up the goat track. Got a drone shot at the beginning then a few camera shots on the way. I don’t fly the drone on the plateau at this time of year as nesting season. I’m not sure the drone would make any difference in comparason to people walking around and certainly less disturbing than a dog. But you never know and the plateau is a special delicate area.
Was great chatting with everyone and all a good bunch great views as we went in. We then reached the foot of the climb and got the guys set with radio mics. They record internally, thankfully as we have no Al lee on the ropes and they went out of signal fairly quickly. The guys were heading up Thor an E5 6B on the slab area of this impressive crag. There were only two other climbers on the crag so I went to chat to them about the drone flying to see if they were ok with it. As it can be off putting at times on the crag. In the end it became so windy no one would hear it unless 5 meters from it lol. They were good with the drone and after returning home I sent them a few pics of them on the needle climbing.
Our climbers did well up the route following an overlap on the slab from left to right. A guy abseiled down from the top to clean a route on the slab. Which was a shame for the filming but thankfully Robbie knows him and all good with the filming. After they did the route that ends 2/3 off the way up the mountain they abseiled off then decided to do Haystack a classic E3 up the Bastion to give a much better filming finish and stand on a summit. Myself and Tavish filmed a couple of pitches then scarmbled round to the top while carrying the climbers bags on our fronts. Getting to the top it was very windy and northern so freezing cold. Colder for the climbers though I’d imagine.
From the top of the cliff it is impossible to see what is going on below so harder to time when to fly a drone down the cliff. But we got some great shots and got them coming onto the summit and a little interview with them. Then we packed up quickly in the cold cloudy evening and started the long but beautiful walk back round the plateau and down the goat track. I could definitely feel my legs by the end with the heavy load and even Tavish seemed tired too by then. A few pics below from the day.
