Banff Mountain Film Festival

There are so many beautiful and wild places on our planet Earth. And the Banff Mountain Film Festival celebrates these fantastic places and the people who try to conquer them. And sometimes highlights what can and will happen when we try to remove the natural resources from these wild environments. "Man" always thinks we can do things to the planet and its inhabitants with no repercussions -- but not so.

(Taken by Ryan Creary: Alex Girard backcountry skiing, Rogers Pass, B.C -- selected as the 2011 Signature Image for the 2011 Banff Mountain Festival)

Before I get on on my "soap box", let me tell you about the most wonderful film festival I've ever attended (okay....the ONLY one I've ever attended). This is the 36th year of the world tour of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, and it spent 2 nights in Kalispell, MT -- benefiting the Flathead Nordic Ski Patrol, which is a volunteer organization of men and women trained on back country and avalanche rescue. The Banff Center invests in creativity and supports the professional development of adventure filmmakers, writers, and photographers. The highlight is the film festival. where they get film entries from all over the world. This film festival has about 700 showings on 7 continents (going to 39 states and you can find the one near you at their web site).

First.....the films were FANTASTIC!!!! And second.....I've finally found a part of the community that I had been missing since I arrived full time in Montana. That of the young, outdoor crowd that looks like they could ski, camp, climb, hike, kayak anything in the wilderness. It's a spirit I felt so much when I spent a month in Big Sky, and at this film festival, it was evident in Western Montana as well. When I'm around this spirit, I feel I was meant to have grown up and spent my life out here. But I digress.

I've always been amazed (and sometimes confused) by mountain climbers....particularly those who put their lives in very real jeopardy by climbing into the "death zone" at over 24,000 ft. I regularly rent (and search for) films and TV shows about climbing Mt. Everest (little over 29,000 ft). And the winner of the Banff Mountain Film Festival was a fabulous film titled "Cold". For the past 26 winters, 16 expeditions have tried and failed to climb one of PAKISTAN'S 8,000-metre peaks (that's over 26,000 ft.), the 13th highest peak in the world. On February 2, 2011 Simone Moro (Italy), Denis Urubko (Russia), and Cory Richards (US) became the first.

And the journey almost killed them.

If you know anything about climbing these mountains, it is always done during the spring, when the weather is better and "warmer" (that being a relative term). That's why I'm not sure why anyone would climb during the winter.

During the climb, Cory carried a small camera and filmed constantly (something he has been doing from a young age -- so it was good). This film was edited and made into a documentary (narrated by Cory). And it was AMAZING. "Everyone is scared when they go alpine climbing." And that came through loud and clear in the film.

As with most mountain climbing, getting to the summit is the "easy" part of the climb.....when climbers die, it is trying to get off the mountain. And it almost happened to these three. The film opens in their small tent where ice crystals blanket every surface. Simone has a terrible racking cough and you can hear the painful sound of lungs starved of oxygen and pierced by cold. It is -51 degrees (and now you understand the title). Each day they continue to climb down in terrible storm conditions, sometimes in whiteout conditions. And then they are it by an avalanche. What the film does not tell us (which makes the film incredibly powerful) is that Simone was buried to his waist, but could dig himself out. Denis was completely buried standing upright, and Simone dug him out to his waist. He then turned his attention to finding and freeing Cory. After Cory realized he was alive (remember high altitudes also equal not thinking rationally), he then turned the camera on himself, and the look on his face was haunting. An amazing film.

We also saw films of various lengths such as "Blue Obsession" which featured the film maker climbing the Mendenhall Glacier in Canada (the ice on glaciers is so compacted, it takes on a blue color). Another was called "Inspiration" about a Canadian freestyle skier who had a terrible accident and was paralyzed from the waist down. He has gone on to become a world champion "chair skier" in downhill races, and is now freestyle skiing on the mountains and plans to complete a back flip in his chair ski.

There was also a film called "Sketchy Andy" is about Andy Lewis, one of the worlds best in "slackline" and "highline" (slacklining at large distances above the ground or water, considered to be the pinnacle of the sport) -- meaning he walks on a 2 inch (for lack of a better word) tightrope over huge canyons and gorges. And now he free bases (think that is the word for jumping and hoping the parachute actually opens before you hit the ground because you are not that far from the ground when you jump!!!) off the highlines. Absolutely amazing, and it would not surprise me to find that he has a serious accident sometime soon. But a great film.

A truly wonderful, but disturbing film, was "Spoil", which won the best film on the mountain environment. It features the "spirit bear", which is a black bear with a recessive gene that turns its fur white. It's an endangered species with less than 400 in the wild and is found in the Great Bear Rainforest on the coast of British Columbia. This documentary depicts one of the few remaining ecosystems where a wild forest meets a wild ocean and native people continue to live sustainably drawing renewable resources from the land. It’s safe to say that this region is unspoiled and would remain so were it not for political and industrial pressures that aim to destroy it.

(not sure who took this picture, but wish it was me)



Now comes the disturbing part -- an oil company wants to build a pipeline from the tar sands of Canada through this rainforest and have super tankers pick up the oil. While the mining of tar sand is the most destructive type of mining on the planet, it is not the mining that is the danger. These huge super tankers are expected to navigate through narrow channels through reefs and around islands -- 225 times a year. Looking at the twisty path they would have to take, it is not a question of "if" an oil spill will occur, but "when". And it would totally destroy this area and most of the animals in the area, including the spirit bear. When is "man" going to realize that all ecosystems are joined together and harm to one affects all.

If you have a chance to attend this film festival -- DO SO!! The films are amazing whether you are an outdoor, live in the woods, climb anything kind of person or not.