Black Mountain Side

Okay so immediately after I finished watching this, I then stepped outside into the night to smoke a cigarette. I live in a place where there is basically near wilderness behind my house and it is very dark. After a minute standing there I hear a stomping of hooves from my immediate left. A deer must have been hanging out, stood frozen so I didn't notice, and then decided to bolt his shit right past me, like 6 feet away from me, taking me my complete surprise.

Black Mountain Side

Archaeologists have made the discovery of a lifetime when they uncovered a strange structure that is believed to be thousands of years old. The team begins to lose ties to the outside world one by one, compounding the effects of complete and utter isolation in an unforgiving frozen wilderness!

While it isn't quite The Thing, Black Mountain Side is a bleak, harrowing piece of Lovecraftian horror, entrenched in isolation, paranoia, and existential dread, seasoned with body horror and tastefully executed creature effects. I'm a real sucker for the setting and creepy deer imagery, so this was just a match made in heaven. There is a bit of stiffness in some of the acting, not particularly that it's bad, but there are some limitations considering the budget and everything. The final conversation is perhaps a bit overdone as well, but I still think it comes together beautifully. I had a chance to see this a little early way back when it was coming out, but didn't make time for it. I was a fool.

'Black Mountain Side' was inspired by a traditional Irish folk song called 'Down by Blackwaterside'. The most well known recording of 'Blackwaterside' being from a 1952 BBC Archive recording of an Irish traveller, Mary Doran.[1] This version was taught to singer Anne Briggs by A. L. Lloyd, and it became popularised on the British club folk circuit during the 1960s. Briggs later taught Bert Jansch the song, who then recorded his own arrangement.

Al Stewart, who had arrived in London in early 1965, followed the folk music scene closely and learnt what he thought was a version of 'Blackwaterside'. However, he mistakenly believed that the song was using DADGAD tuning whereas it was actually using a simpler 'drop D' tuning. At the time, Stewart was recording his own debut record and had engaged guitarist Jimmy Page as a session musician. Allegedly during a break during recordings both Page and Stewart exchanged notes which gave Page the idea to record his own version.

Climbed the left branch of the Y gully, then scrambled to the summit. One skier dropped in to a safe spot, then I kicked off an 18" avalanche that roared past him. We hiked back out and descended the south side of the mountain, mostly in the dark and through dense forest. Very long day, very poor conditions on the descent, but still better than being buried! 19 hours car to car.

Beautiful hike in, and a great ridge walk to the summit. Perfectly clear day. Sat down with a couple of topos at my side, spent a while naming visible peaks. Highly recommend this climb. Do-able in one day, but why hurry? Spend your weekend up there. It is worth it. 041b061a72