Welcome, this is Hot Aches Productions. We specialise in making films about rock climbing and mountaineering.

Our latest film: 'The Long Hope'

People's Choice Award - Kendal Mountain Film Festival

"It's simply one of the best climbing films I've seen." - Jack Geldard, UKC

St John's head on the Island of Hoy is a wild and remote 1150 foot sea cliff. It was first climbed in 1970 by climber and poet Ed Drummond together with Oliver Hill. They took 7 days to climb the cliff, sleeping on ledges and in hammocks along the way. Now, 40 years later, one of the World's top climbers, Dave MacLeod, sets out to climb the cliff in a single day, finishing with a new desperately hard final pitch up the headwall.

Macleod's historic new climb, The Longhope Route Direct (E11), is captured close-up with the latest HD cameras and contrasted with the challenges of Drummond's first ascent through interviews and archive material. The film also follows Drummond, now in his late sixties and suffering from Parkinson's disease, as he makes a pilgrimage back to St John's Head to look upon the route one last time.

Running time 60 mins

"...this is the stuff of dreams...and nightmares! The stream of expletives rattles out like machine gun fire as the bold Scot powers up the mind blowing face with the rasping waves far below." - John Appleby, Footless Crow

"The Long Hope is a superb production, which has a real story, magnificent climbing, great characters, amazing locations, stunning cinematography, engaging interviews, emotionally charged reflections, professional editing and above all a happy and heart-warming ending. How climbing films should be done." - Jack Geldard, UKC

HD DOWNLOAD £ 14.99

The download also includes Dave MacLeod's ascent of The Indian Face, E9.
Resolution: 1280 X 720, File Size: 2.2GB
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DVD £ 19.99
Available now

P&P £ 1.50 (Worldwide)
Feature 60 mins, Extras 50 mins
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DVD Extras

Return To Indian Face
The story of Dave MacLeod's journey to repeat Johnny Dawes' ultimate test-piece, The Indian Face E9.

The Old Man
Dave MacLeod and cameraman, Guy Heaton, take some time out to climb Britain's most iconic sea stack.

Mucklehouse Wall
Dave MacLeod & Andy Turner enjoy Mucklethouse Wall E5 at sunset.

Our Other Climbing Films

Coming Soon

Wide Boys Two climbers from Sheffield, England, take on the hardest wide cracks in the world. Do you like it wide?

Climbing Movie Makers

We have a passion for making rock climbing films and mountaineering films which we hope comes across in our work. We believe that video is a fantastic medium for sharing our love of climbing and all the great stories that climbing and mountaineering generate.

We are based in Edinburgh, Scotland, but we love to travel to anywhere with beautiful mountains or great rock climbing. We record our films using the latest HD video cameras to give you the best quality climbing DVDs. We hate to blow our own trumpet, but just so you know that we have a trumpet, our films have now won 28 international awards at mountain film festivals around the world. All our climbing films are available to stream directly from the web, download to keep or buy on DVD.

Hot Aches Productions was founded in 2004 by adventure filmmaker Paul Diffley. Our first major climbing DVD E11 followed Dave MacLeod making the first ascent of Rhapsody (E11) in Scotland. E11 won thirteen international awards and is now widely regarded as one of the best climbing movies ever made. E11 is still one the best selling rock climbing DVDs in the UK. Since then we have filmed Dave Macleod on many other hard climbs, as well as several of the world’s top rock climbers and mountaineers including James Pearson, Andy Turner, Sonnie Trotter, Steve McClure, Matt Segal, Johnny Dawes, John Dunne and many more.

Our DVD Committed Vol II won the Banff Mountain Film festival Best Climbing Film award two years on the run. See our Rock Climbing Films page for more details. As our name suggests, we also love to make ice climbing and mountaineering films. One of our first climbing DVDs, All Mixed Up, features two Scottish climbers mixed climbing in the Canadian Rockies. Our latest DVD, The Pinnacle, features Dave MacLeod ice climbing on Ben Nevis, retracing the steps of Jimmy Marshal and Robin Smith 50 years earlier.

Our new film The Long Hope is currently playing film festivals around the world.

You can subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch many great climbing videos and keep up to date with the latest video uploads. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. We hope you enjoy watching our films.

Climb on!