In the world of mountaineering, Arrowtowner Brian Hall’s just about done it all.
That’s from first ascents in the Himalayas to guiding, from working on 100-plus film and TV productions, mainly in safety and logistics, but also directing and acting, to writing one of the most captivating ever mountaineering books.
Raised in England, Brian started climbing in the Lake District when he was 16.
In his university years he fell in with a group of climbers doing high-level mountaineering, which he then pursued for about 15 years.
He’d climb in the European Alps, the Himalayas and the Americas for eight months a year, mostly on sponsored expeditions, and work odd jobs in-between.
He was part of a change in the sport from heavyweight expeditions to the cheaper, more flexible alpine style of climbing.
One of his biggest first ascents was the north ridge of Nuptse, opposite Everest, and the first alpine ascent of Jannu in eastern Nepal.
His group tried but failed to make the first winter ascent of Everest.
"I tried to go back and climb at a high level and I started getting post-traumatic stress, really, I didn’t enjoy it."
Brian then trained and became a full-time mountain guide based in Chamonix, France.
"By accident, I was then asked to work in the film industry, taking some people up Mont Blanc and filming it.
"I suddenly thought, this is more interesting than guiding, it’s better paid and every job’s different."
He started a company, Film & Mountain, and for 30 years, till retiring when Covid struck, worked mainly as a mountain film safety and logistics consultant, often in extreme locations.
His bulging CV includes Bridget Jones, James Bond film Die Another Day, Touching the Void and Alien vs. Predator.
But he’s also acted, done climbing stunts and produced and directed, including co-producing award-winning doco, Bonington: Mountaineer.
Around 2004 he came to New Zealand to work on a few films and met people like Queenstown mountaineers Mark Whetu and Dave ‘Spoon’ Macleod.
He bought Whetu’s house in 2008 and he and wife Louise have mostly lived here since, relocating to Arrowtown last year.
They’ve also returned each year to their other home in England’s Peak District.
In 2019, after undertaking a Banff Mountain and Wilderness Writing programme, he started High Risk: Climbing to Extinction, which took two-and-a-half years to write.
First published in 2022, the riveting 382-page book chronicles 11 mostly British mountaineering friends who all lost their lives, seven while climbing,
"I started off thinking I survived because of my knowledge and because I adapted to the environment.
"By the time I’d finished, I thought that was rubbish — it was pure chance.
"It’s about the psychology of high risk in the mountains and why we actually did it — and also, importantly, why I sort of gave up as well."
Brian quotes one of his subjects saying: "Fifteen minutes on the Thin Red Line is worth an awful lot of ordinary living."
The book, however, is not morbid, and also covers the climbers’ often wild lifestyles in the ’70s and ’80s.
It won three awards including the prestigious Boardman Tasker award for mountain literature.
Though 73, Brian’s still a hard-out rock climber who’s painstakingly pioneered climbs on a new crag, Arrow Slab, near Arrowtown, along with Macleod, and who with other friends has developed routes on Quartz Wall below the Remarkables’ Single Cone.
His only concession to age is he’s given up skiing following two knee replacements.
"Quite often in the ski season I disappear out of frustration, more than anything, because everybody else is whooping and enjoying their skiing."
