6.00pm – Auditorium - £10.00

Lecture: Mick Fowler – Cutting Edge Climbs in East Tibet. Rightly regarded as “the mountaineer’s mountaineer,” Mick tells of exploratory mountaineering, remote nomads, incredible lines and first ascents in little visited parts of Tibet.

8.00pm – Auditorium - £8.00

Lecture: Thomas Laird – The Story of Tibet: Conversations with Dalai Lama. This leading American investigative journalist enjoyed unrivalled access to remote areas of Tibet, and to the Dalai Lama with more than 60 hours of interviews for his most recent book – a unique insight into the history of an amazing country, a unique culture and remarkable man and world leader.

11.00am – Lecture Theatre – Free

Film: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh.  A remarkable documentary, made by leading anthropologist and film-maker Helena Norburg-Hodge that investigates the culture clash between the ancient Himalayan Kingdom of Ladakh and modern Globalisation. A template for understanding cultural friction everywhere.

2.30pm – Lecture Theatre - £5.00

Lecture: Doug Scott – Everest for the Kids. A special family focused talk, by the first Briton to climb the world’s highest mountain, and the first to climb it by its incredibly technical South West Face. Doug is a great proponent of children seeking adventure and his aim is to inspire the young to go beyond themselves.

5.30pm – Lecture Theatre - Free

Children’s Film Matinee: "Tintin in Tibet."

7.30pm – Auditorium - £8.00

Lecture: Ed Douglas – Tenzing – The Authoritative, Illustrated Biography. Mountaineer, journalist and award winning author, he tells of the greatest of all Sherpa mountaineers, from his birth in the shadow of Everest, to its first ascent on the 29th May 1953 with Ed Hillary and beyond. Tenzing Norgay has been an inspiration to Third World people everywhere.

11.00am – Lecture Theatre – Free

Film: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (see above). 

2.30pm – Lecture Theatre - £5.00

Lecture: Sir Chris Bonington – Tibet’s Secret Mountain. Britain’s best-known mountaineer tells of his explorations of an unknown mountain range in north east Tibet. Early booking essential.

6.00pm – Lecture Theatre - £8.00

Lecture: Thomas Laird – Into Tibet: The CIA’s First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa.  A factual account of covert operations, Cold War scheming and betrayal on “The Roof of the World”. The repercussions of the CIA’s callous involvement of Tibet into its latter day “Great Game” campaign against Soviet Russia is still reverberating today.

8.00pm – Auditorium - £8.00

Illustrated Talk: Hamish Fulton – The Walking Artist. One of Britain’s leading artists, prolific author and major exhibitor at the Tate Modern, tells of his unique approach to interacting with, and then communicating the wild, mountainous landscape of the Himalaya. Superb imagery and great sensitivity enable us all to make a profound connection to the “Roof of the World”.

11.00am – Lecture Theatre – Free

Film: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (see above).

2.30pm – Lecture Theatre - £3.00

Lecture: Robin Ashcroft – Everest – The Top of the World. The manager of the National Mountaineering Exhibition tells of some of the lesser-known aspects of the exploration and first ascent of the world’s highest mountain.

5.30pm - Lecture Theatre - Free

Children's Film Matinee: "Tintin in Tibet."

7.30pm - Auditorium - £5.00

Film Evening: Martin Scorses's "Kundun"

11.00am - Lecture Theatre - Free

Film: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (see above).

2.30pm - Lecture Theatre - £6.00

Lecture: Lama Yeshe – Life and Hard Times. Made a fugitive by the Chinese invasion of Tibet, Lama Yeshe has a remarkable and exciting tale to tell. As a teenager he made a hair-raising escape over the Himalaya, faced the challenge of coming to terms with the world outside Tibet, became a social rebel, did a 12 year retreat, reached a higher level of being and has now taken on a crucial role in bringing all faiths together. Lama Yeshe is now abbot at the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre, Scotland.

5.30pm - Lecture Theatre - £6.00

Yeshe Palmo: Exploring the Sacred Valleys of the Himalaya. Buddhist explorer, Yeshe Palmo tells and shows film of the sacred valleys hidden away, both in the Himalaya and in the raised consciousness of the Buddhist mind. Drawing on her own travels and experience of Himalayan culture and legend she breathes life into the background of Shangri La.

7.30pm - Auditorium - £6.00

Conversations and images: Buddhist Pilgrimage to Mt Kailash. Mt Kailash is both Hindu and Buddhism’s most sacred site – The Navel of the World - and one of the world’s most beautiful mountains. This is the story of both the pilgrimage and the profound experience of a group of western, middle-aged pilgrims. Everyone listening to the story, finds themselves relating to it regardless of the remoteness and difficulty of the journey.

11.00am - Lecture Theatre - Free

Film: Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh (see above).

3.00pm - Lecture Theatre - £3.00

Folk Music and Sacred Dance from the Roof of the World. Stunning performance and sensational costumes. You can discover the richness of traditional Tibetan music and dance. Princess Dolka trains and organises the troupe from the Samye Ling Tibetan Centre.

6.00pm - Lecture Theatre - £10.00

Lecture: Doug Scott and Julian Freeman-Attwood – Exploration and First Ascents in SE Tibet. Two of Britain’s leading exploratory mountaineers tell of the discovery, exploration and we hope, first ascent of Nyegi, Kangsang - one the world’s last unclimbed 7000m peaks. We say “we hope”, because at the time of going to print the expedition is still planning to set off in September. Real cutting edge stuff!

8.00pm - Auditorium - £8.00

Lecture: Dr Hildegard Diemberger, Cambridge Tibetologist -
Sacred Geography around Mount Everest - Hidden Valleys and Mountain Deities in Tibet and Nepal. This fascinating illustrated talk explores Tibetan views of sacred geography that includes 'hidden valleys' (sbas yul), ancestral cults, pilgrimages, Buddhist heroes and mountain deities speaking through human mediums. It will also look at how these views relate to more secular perspectives against the background of the profound social and cultural changes in contemporary Tibet, and at how they have been reformulated in new settings.

6.30pm - Lecture Theatre - £8.00

Lecture: Dr Mike Searle – The Geology of the Himalaya, Karakoram and Tibet. Mike Searle is Doctor of Earth Sciences at Oxford and is the world’s leading expert on the mountain building of the Himalaya. In an exciting, illustrated talk he tells of the titanic forces that built, and are still building the Himalaya. Very popular lecturer – book early.

8.00pm - Auditorium - £10.00

Lecture: Mark Bowen, PhD, Thin Ice – Dramatic Climate Change on the “Roof of the World”. The glaciers of the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau contain a unique record of climate changes over many millennia and provide a faint, but stark vision of the future of Global Warming. Mark, who is a leading scientist and world class mountaineer, who has been up there, taking core-samples in the “Death Zone” is flying in especially, from Boston, to give this talk. This is a subject of huge importance; the Himalaya - as the “Abode of Snow” and the great plateau of Tibet - are the source of all the great rivers of Asia, and thus the source of life for one tenth of the world’s population.