I bring innovation to everything I love.
For four years, I volunteered as Innovation and Communications Chairman at FEEC, the Catalan Mountain Federation for Alpinism and Climbing. A federation with over a hundred years of history, 40,000 active members, and more than a million weekly mountaineers in Catalonia.
There, I led a team to research the origins of what we now know as trail-running: the forgotten mountain rallies that originated in the 1950s. Over two years, together with mountain pioneers and innovators from around the world, we investigated what got lost along the way and brought a new proposal to reconnect with the mountains and to play together beyond competition.
With deep respect for the past, and with a core group of veteran organisers and mountain club leaders, we celebrated a pilot event in the Pyrenees. Open to only 18 teams, each of which had to present an extended résumé of mountain experience in advance.
Professional teams with renowned experts like Patagonia alpinist Pedro Cifuentes and Women’s Trail-Running World Champion Núria Picas merged with amateur and semi-professional teams, all together as one. It was an experience of companionship between people who, beyond competing with each other, share the same passion and chose that fun and the true spirit of mountaineering matter more than podiums or the chrono.
The documentary captures the why behind the event and the overwhelming response from participants and organisers. The result of this augmented co-creation went beyond anything we could have expected. A beauty and freshness that surprised everyone involved.
In the last video, recorded by myself, I am scrambling carefully where the masters of alpine-running were flowing like goats, with confidence and elegance.
I left the Catalan Mountain Federation at the end of 2015. But the F-Rally experience is still with me today. I continue to play with the wisdom gained in that pilot, exploring a new format for playing in the mountains in unity, beyond competition.