A climate-change consultant and professional skier from Paonia will be one of the featured subjects when Durango Nature Studies presents Mountainfilm on Tour for its fall fundraiser Nov. 1 at the Smiley Building Theater.
Alison Gannett heads three nonprofits including Save Our Snow; puts on surf, bike and ski camps for women; and operates a 75-acre farm in Paonia. She is unnerved, however, because the land she nurtures is threatened by natural-gas interests.
The 10-minute film about Gannett is one of two character-driven “Move Shake” documentaries on the program, which will start at 5:30 p.m. More than a dozen films ranging from three to 22 minutes in length will be shown. A sampling of the films scheduled to be screened are:
“Last of the Great Unknown” (22 minutes) – The Grand Canyon, a barren labyrinth of light and shadows, was one of the last places in the American West to be surveyed. John Wesley Powell, before he made the first descent of the Colorado River in 1869, called it “The Great Unknown.” Much of it still is today, and river runners, backpackers, lithic hunters and butte baggers seek prestigious “firsts” in the Grand Canyon’s innumerable technical slots.
“The Burn” (6 minutes) – Every summer, forest fires burn wildly across the mountains. As destructive as they are, they have a purpose and beauty that often goes unappreciated: When winter arrives in these charred forests, so do skiers.
“Cascada” (8 minutes) – When a crew of filmmakers and kayakers heads to the Mexican jungle to hunt big waterfalls, it finds a place of unrelenting rain, heinous insects, thick mud, scary viruses and utter perfection. “Cascada” follows crew members as they explore a world beyond expectations, where biting flies, tangled vines and shoddy hotel rooms can’t detract from the unrivaled waterfalls and powerful rapids they discover.
“Strong” (8 minutes) – On April 6, 2011, Roger Strong was skinning to one of his favorite backcountry runs on Washington’s Snoqualmie Pass with some friends when he triggered a violent avalanche. The slide tore through a couloir, leaving Strong and the other skiers badly injured. A year to the day after the tragedy, Strong – who spent three months in a wheelchair recovering – returns to ski the Slot Couloir and contemplate the fine balance between risk and passion. The film follows him as he reflects on his family, his love of the mountains and what he can learn from his mistakes.
“Lacon De Caralonia” (5 minutes) – If your backyard mountain bike jumps require a five-story drop-in ramp for speed, chances are your name is Andreu Lacondeguy. The Antimedia film crew takes us to Lacondeguy’s training compound in the suburbs of Barcelona, Spain, for a day in the life of one of the best riders in the world.
“Der Scwarze Spur (The Black Line)” (4 minutes) – One spring day, the guys from Ebis Films ventured into the mountains of Japan for a shoot and couldn’t help but notice the surreal, silvery quality of the snow, which had been glossed over with a fine-film crust. It reminded them so much of a photo featured in Kuroi Spur (The Black Line), the 1965 book by pioneering skiing cinematographer Keizo Miura, that they made this three-minute vignette as a tribute. In it, snowflakes waft like fine metal shavings, snow dust floats over the crust like a specter and ski tracks look like graphite lines on a chrome-finished slope.
“Split of a Second” (9 minutes) – Prepare for a mix of goose bumps and nausea as finely calculated risk meets pure insanity. “Split of a Second” gets inside the thoughts and motives of wingsuit world champion Espen Fadnes.
“Gregg Treninish” (10 minutes) – What does it really take to combine passion for adventure and a responsibility to protect the environment? In this “Move Shake” film, awe meet Gregg Treinish, a National Geographic Adventurer who launched the nonprofit Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation (ASC) in 2011. Based on the idea that those who recreate in natural areas have a responsibility to protect them, ASC facilitates partnerships between adventure athletes and researchers.
“A New Perspective” (10 minutes) – David Lama is best known as the young competition climber who conquered an 8b+ at the age of 12 and went on to become a junior world champion and twice winner of the European Youth Cup. But these days, Lama is focused on the toothy peaks in the world’s tallest mountain ranges. “A New Perspective” follows the soft-spoken climber and his partner, Peter Ortner, as they tackle these heights. After free climbing the Cerro Torre in Patagonia, the pair travels to Pakistan to attempt to free-climb Eternal Flame, a pitch up the Nameless Tower in the lofty Karakorum Range.
“Wolf Mountain” (7 minutes) – The wolves featured in this short live in a shelter and have never known life in the wild. But you would never know that by looking into their eyes or listening to their howls, which express a connection to a deep, abiding and mysterious place that has no link with captivity.
“Trip (Colored Snow)” (3 minutes) – Twisting the perspective of skiing powder with dazzling colors, this film harks back to the days of Roger Brown and The Mobius Flip.
“The Gimp Monkeys” (8 minutes) – After four nights and five days, Craig DeMartino, Jarem Frye and Pete Davis scrambled to the top of the 1,800-foot Zodiac Wall on Yosemite’s El Capitan on June 9, 2012. It’s a route that’s been climbed countless times, but not like this: the first all-disabled ascent. DeMartino (who lost a leg in a climbing accident), Frye (who lost a leg to bone cancer) and Davis (who was born without an arm) didn’t accomplish the feat to raise awareness or champion their cause. They did it because they are climbers first and disabled second.
“Return to Tepuis” (9 minutes) – “Science is important,” says Bruce Means, whose investigative work into a species of tiny toads in remotest Guyana, South America, is featured in this engaging short. Science also is, by the look of it, exotic, exciting and not without a hint of danger. His work is about understanding biodiversity in order to help conserve it, and to do so, he has to reach the toad’s habitat. In his second foray to the ancient and lost world of the Tepuis, he is joined by National Geographic photographer Joe Riis and professional climber Mark Synnott.
“Flutter” (9 minutes) – John Bedford is a 75-year-old man obsessed with butterflies. Traveling around the globe – from the jungles of Vietnam to Mayan ruins in Guatemala – to watch and collect the beautiful insects, Bedford’s passion for the extraordinary takes the form of visual poetry in this short documentary. Collecting since childhood, Bedford brings his cherished specimens home to Toronto and carefully preserves them, hoping to make them last forever.
jeisele@durangoherald.com
If you go
Durango Nature Studies will present Mountainfilm on Tour on Nov. 1 at the Smiley Building Theater, 1309 East Third Ave. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m., and the films will begin at 7 p.m. Food and drinks from Zia Taqueria, Serious Delights, Steamworks Brewing Company and 6th Street Liquor will be available for purchase.
Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 at the door and $7 for students. Children younger than 12 are free. Advance tickets can be purchased online at www.durangonaturestudies.org or at Maria’s Bookshop, Zia Taqueria, 4 Corners River Sports and Pine Needle Mountaineering.
To view clips of the films, visit www.mountainfilm.org.
