A walk on the wild slide with Johnny Dawes

I was lucky enough to team up with and film the legendary climber Johnny Dawes on Lundy Island at the BMC Climbing Festival in late August. On his first ever visit to the Puffin Isle, he wanted to attempt a hands free “walk” up the island’s classic climb called “The Devil’s Slide”.

Johnny came up with this fantastically outrageous idea the night before we sailed from Bideford and fortunately I had some filming gear with me so a plan was soon formulated. All we needed was a couple of mates to help out with the logistics and the weather to play ball. So on a bluebird but blustery Friday September 1st and the wind getting ever stronger just to add to the excitement, Johnny started his walk up the Devil’s Slide…

Anyway here’s a wee video of the day with some aerial footage of one of the UK’s greatest ever climbers to lace up a pair of rock shoes on his attempt to “walk” up Lundy’s most iconic natural feature on the classic climb of the island. I have seen one or two things in 25 years of climbing but this was something else…

Dave Linnett