THEY came, they saw, they conquered — adventurers and outdoor enthusiasts from far and wide made this year’s Kendal Mountain Festival another mighty event.

The mountainous gathering got off to an inspiring start on Thursday night with the festival’s open air ceremony in front of Kendal Town Hall.

The crowds flocked to see a selection of breathtaking films and top local climber and festival patron Leo Houlding declaring proceedings well and truly open.

Although strong winds earlier in the day halted plans to put up a huge screen outside the town hall, the side of a Luton van was used to project a terrific taster of some of the fabulous footage that would be shown during the festival.

The following four days saw thousands of festival followers descend on Kendal with the organisers thrilled that once again the event was the biggest and busiest ever.

Festival director Clive Allen said early estimates indicated visitor numbers were up about 10 per cent on KMF 2012.

“That means well in excess of 9,500 people were at the event,” said Clive.

“We’ll crunch the numbers later but given that two years ago the festival was measured at bringing £1.9million into the local economy, this is great news for local accommodation and service providers.”

Clive and his team were delighted not only with the turnout, but the breadth of activities that people took part in.

“We had 250 people thundering up Beast Banks at the start of our trail run, which was a sight to behold,” continued Clive.

“Then there was Friday night when we had over 1,500 people in three sold-out events across Kendal, plus five other venues packed with more people watching movies. “Weekend film passes sold out by Friday, so we just have to make sure we have even more capacity available next year.”

Finally, the whole event peaked on Sunday night with KMF’s version of The Oscars, when festival film judges announced the winners of 12 coveted prizes.

Having sat through all 72 films showing at the event, more than 150 hours’ worth, the judges decided the Grand Prize should go to The Crash Reel, an emotion-packed documentary about a young snowboard champion desperate to ride again after a life-threatening head injury.

Meanwhile, Kendal Mountain Festival hits London this weekend when, in conjunction with the British Film Institute, there’s a special KMF event at the BFI’s Southbank Film Centre.

Top adventure films will be playing across three cinema screens with a big event on Friday featuring three of the UK’s top filmmakers, Alastair Lee, Paul Diffley and Leo Dickinson, presenting their films and talking about their work.