Took the family to the 35th Scots Festival at Estes Park today, and not sure which I liked best. They had jousting, but the best part was the Realgestack or Heavy Armor Jousting. This is full on 10 and 12 gauge armor, with a quarter inch steel shoulder plate, neck shielding, draught horses, shattering lances, dehorsing knights type jousting. NO flag football genteel stuff here. In every single contest at least one of the knights completely shattered their 1-1/2 inch 14 foot wooden lances, and I mean shattered as in put them in a hydraulic press and see foot long splinters going EVERYWHERE. In 2 of the contests that I watched, one of the knights was dehorsed with one guy landing on the posts that hold the ropes that define the lists (lanes) that the riders follow during the joust. And the sound of the lances shattering was on the order of a .30 cal rifle crack. There were a few instance where these guys were doing several contests in a row and even the draught horses had decided they'd had enough and one even rode off the field with rider in tow! And then there was the music. There were the traditional pipe bands, Irish and Scottish folk music, and then the Celtic and Gaelic more modern stuff like the band Albannach, which is several drums, a long aboriginal pipe, and of course bagpipes, and they had the tent rocking for about 3-4 hours!!!! It was packed wall to wall with people pulling back the sides of the tent to pack in even tighter. And there were quite a few young ladies who were sporting mini-kilts I might add who did them GREAT justice! And of course, the pipe band contests and the final Last Post where all of the local pipe bands marched out onto the field playing Scotland the Brave. I could only post 2 videos, and they're grainy, but one is of a knight being dehorsed, and the other is of the bands playing Scotland the Brave. Would love to post one of Albannach, but the sound was drowned out by the roar of the crowd, so just Google them, they're GOOD!
OH, they even had a trebuchet there and several cannon, including 2 "bowling ball" mortars that were used to try and sink an inflatable Viking Longboat with 11 lb bowling balls, also quite impressive. And all surrounded by the Rockies. Not too shabby!
Scots Fest, Estes Park, CO-Sept 2011
