Jamie Pierre Hucks Record for God

by Erik Olsen on

I just came across the story in Outside Magazine of
skier and corpse hurler Jamie Pierre who recently set a world-record for cliff jumping at the Grand Targhee Resort in Wyoming.
Pierre, who has made a nice living pulling off radical ski stunts in from of the camera – both moving and still – had
his eyes set on this cliff for many years, but was just waiting for the right conditions. Pierre is a hard-core
Christian, and so uttered several prayers before the jump, one of which no doubt included the phrase, God don’t let
me get squished like a bug and/or don’t let my legs telescope into my vital organs.

But yo
uknow what? His prayers were answered. The hard-core dude dropped some 245 vertical feet off the back of Fred’s
Mountain (the point where he hucked himself is now called Pierre’s Point), and lived to tell the tale. Of course, the
stunt was captured on film by the folks at Teton Gravity Research who are no
doubt cutting the feat into a new film which this skier and former hucker (though nothing like that) will drop a few
dollars to see.

Whistler to Get Dumped On

by Erik Olsen on

One of my favorite places to ski in the world is going to
get dumped on soon
with thousands of tons of freshie, though sadly, I will not be able to be there. Whistler in British Columbia…well, BC in general…is expected to get at
least 1-2 feet of snow, starting on Thursday or early Friday and then the storm will move east later Friday and the
weekend. So if you’re in the area, it might be a good time to take a sick day…and I MEAN sick day, becuse the skiiing
is gong to get absolutely sick.

Skiing in Kashmir

by Neil Woodburn on

Adventure skiing usually involves steep slopes and challenging terrain, not armed soldiers and disputed
territories.  Yet, this is exactly what journalist Tam Leach potentially faced when he traveled to one of the more dangerous places on this
planet, Kashmir, to do a little skiing.

Skiing is certainly not the first thing you think of when you hear the word Kashmir.  Some think of sweaters,
others think of Led Zeppelin.  I think about the six backpackers kidnapped a few years ago, a couple of which
ended up beheaded. 

Kashmir, however, is so much more than this.  Located in the Himalayas between India and Pakistan (and thus
the root of the armed conflict over the region) Kashmir is beautiful, mystic country that becomes covered in snow
during wintertime.  It is also home to the world’s highest gondola at 13,400ft.

Leach discovers phenomenal skiing here at a resort called Gulmarg.  I’m not a huge skier myself, but his
description of the slopes and conditions are enough to make me travel half way around the world to engage in a little
adventure skiing.  Leach falls in love with the place, yearning after his return home for “the powder, for
the starry Himalayan skies, for the sensation of skiing close to the top of the world.”  But it is not just
the skiing.  Unlike most ski holidays, he actually has a deeply cultural experience interacting with the
natives.  His greatest desire is to simply return and drink tea with them once again. 

Now that’s a great vacation.

 

Banff Mountain Film Festival Comes to Town

by Neil Woodburn on

We posted a few weeks ago about the Banff Film
Festival’s annual road trip in which they take the
very best outdoor/mountain films submitted to their annual competition, and trek them around the world for various
showings. This weekend the tour finally made it to my home town.

I have to admit, I wasn’t as impressed as
I have been in the past.  It wasn’t a bad show, but the collection of short films usually leaves me inspired
and motivated and eager to really embrace life in the outdoors. It didn’t so much this year. 

The
showing included the usual snowboarding/skiing selection which wasn’t as awe-inspiring as past efforts as well as
two rock climbing films which I found a little boring.

I was, however, impressed with a 7-minute film
called Balancing
Point, another about kayaking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a very funny one about the thoughts that run
through your head while riding up a ski lift called Solilochairliftquist. The real crowd pleaser, which also
won the Best Film on Mountain Sports category, was Praszczur
(Grandpa).  It was a little slow, but if you find it good fun to watch an 80 year-old Polish man dragged down a
mountainside before finally getting airborne with his paraglider, than this is the film for you.  My personal
favorite, Hockey Night… in Ladakh, featured some out-of-shape Canadian diplomats who take on a
Himalayan hockey team located high in the mountains of northern India.

Overall I still highly recommend
checking out the Banff Film Festival tour when it arrives in
your home town. Different films are screened on different nights so I may not have caught the very best ones on the
night I went.