Mountainfilm Blog

Mountainfilm Announces Early Special Guest Confirmations

Pioneering Artists, Adventurers and Scientists to Present at 35^th Annual Festival

Telluride, Colorado (March 26, 2013) –In addition to screening leading independent documentary films, Mountainfilm in Telluride is distinguished each year by the scope of its non-film presentations. World-renowned journalists, photographers and explorers, along with experts in such distinct fields as foreign policy, environmental science and social justice join athletes, activists and artists on the Mountainfilm stages each year. This year marks the 35^th anniversary of the festival and diversity will, once again, be a hallmark of the event.

Buying local and organic food is now de rigueur for many people, but what about alcohol? Firewater doesn’t get as much ecological press as food, but the majority of Americans do imbibe, averaging roughly four drinks per week (according to a Gallup pole on the subject from August of 2012, which we suspect is skewed toward the low side because how many Americans report honestly about their drinking habits?). The challenge is: If you don’t have a winery, brewer or distillery down your street, what’s the greenest booze for the liquor cabinet?

Thankfully, Mother Jones did the homework for us a while back in a story titled “Which Kind of Booze is Best for the Planet?” Based on this article, we offer the following few rules of thumb:

Wine

Yard sale. Auger. Rag doll. 

For many, that’s an innocuous set of words, but for skiers, it can spell doom. Falls, however, invariably happen in the sport when pitch, gravity and the slightest error combine to send one tumbling ass over teakettle.

And now with the abundance of helmet cameras, people record these falls to watch in perpetuity. So brace yourself for two nasty falls: one by a snowboarder and another by an ice climber.

The snowboarder and his group got in, admittedly, over their heads and made some bad decisions. Then as you can clearly see, it gets worse (especially around 12:50), although astonishingly, he was unhurt.

Climate change. Plastic. GMOs. Elephant tusks. Refugees. The list goes on, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by today’s issues and wonder where to start. That’s why I Will If You Will, an Earth Hour global challenge campaign, is particularly refreshing.

Earth Hour describes the concept like this: “The idea is simple. Someone makes a promise to do something if a certain number of people commit to take an ongoing action for the environment….”

The action can be big or small, and anyone can participate — “from a kid in a classroom to a president of a nation — to become the inspiration to their friends, family, colleagues and communities by sharing what they’re willing to do to protect the planet."

Here are a few recent examples:

The skiing in our home of Telluride, Colorado is exceptional right now, but with the invention of monster fat tire bikes, some locals whiz around the backcountry on two wheels all winter. But even those of us who prefer skis or snowboards with our flakes can’t help but think about bike season, which is just around the corner.

To feed a die-hard bike appetite this time of year, we recommend taking a few minutes to watch two shorts:

1. Racing to the End, where bikers rise at an ungodly hour to poach the L.A. Marathon course, competing on 26 miles of L.A. streets with no traffic.

2. The Man Who Lived on His Bike, in which Guillaume Blanchet eats, sleeps, showers, shaves, works, cooks and even dates — all from atop his man-powered machine.

On May 1 in 1963, Jim Whittaker became the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest. He was part of a team led by Norman Dyenruth that made a multi-pronged ascent of the mountain, including a daring route by Tom Hornbein and Willi Unsoeld of the previously unclimbed West Ridge.

Last month, almost fifty years later, the American Alpine Club gathered a few of the surviving members of the expedition in San Francisco to celebrate their accomplishment. In attendance were the expedition leader, 95 year-old Norman Dyenruth, who flew in from Austria; Jim Whittaker (who appeared at Mountainfilm 2009); Dave Dingman, who did not summit but was a key part of the team; and Tom Hornbein, who displayed a jar that held Willi Unsoeld’s toes to the audience. The event was presented by Eddie Bauer, which provided the original gear used by the alpinists.