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It was a deluge that slate day in Southern
California back in the mid-seventies, the day I first became
aware. Our whole phys-ed class had been corralled into the gym
to sit cross-legged on the wooden floor to watch a time-passing
movie on the old Bell& Howell reel to reel. The nerdy AV
guy got the film flickering, sudden booming noise adjusted, and
inevitable falling-from-a-building windows-rushing-by, vertical
hold tamed. It was a ski film, the first I had ever seen. I was
in my early teens, only subconsciously aware of skiing, images
in the back of my mind from some Disney film or some such thing,
but this film, this big glorious production, big as life and
in my face, made me aware.
It was called The Performers and was produced
by a company called K2 (I had no idea what K2 meant at the time).
K2 apparently made the crazy-looking, red-white-and-blue skis
used by the five hell-bent performers that had knees made of
some kind of elastomer.
The time line goes something like this:
Dick Barrymore, in 1969, sees Bob Burns ski a mogul run in Sun
Valley and is blown away by the handlebar-mustached, steel-thighed
skier who, “attacked a field of moguls like Errol Flynn
attacking a band of pirates.” Barrymore writes, “No
one skied like Burns. Bob Burns was, in 1969, the first hot-
dogger.” Barrymore was so moved to capture Burns’s
unique style on film that he persuaded K2—Burns was a rep—to
foot the bill, resulting in the first two short K2 promotional
films. These two low budget affairs fed the enthusiasm for hot-dogging
that was building in 1970. Dealers, reps, and skiers across the
country kept asking when the next K2 film would be ready.
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The Performers, Barrymore’s third film
for K2—26 minutes long and one of his most popular movies—took
an entire winter, 100,000 feet of film, and 10,000 miles of driving
to complete. The filmmaker and the five-skier K2 demo team tooled
around the country in a red-white-and-blue 26 ft. motor home
and in the process originated the first wet T-shirt contest (Sun
Valley’s Boiler Room Bar) learning just what gals will do
for a new pair of K2’s; the first Hot Dog Contest in the
West (100 competitors, 3000 spectators, Bell Mountain in Aspen,
most exciting run won, recoveries scored high); and discovered
a skier called Boogie who skied the contest moguls so slowly,
it took him ten minutes to reach the bottom. His technique was
dubbed The Slow Dog Noodle. |
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One for Barrymore. Modern K2
Gals with the Yummy. Ph. Yorick Carroux |
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Barrymore and the intrepid five’s
1971 season continued with more wet T-shirt contests that devolved
into scenarios that I will not go into here—it’s all
in Barrymore’s autobiography, Breaking Even. The
punctuation to this historic year was a Playboy spread chronicling
the hot-dogging and bulging wet T-shirts of 1971 as well as Student
Skier magazine voting Dick Barrymore Male Chauvinist of the Year.
Flash forward to high school. As soon as
I could drive, I learned to ski. Soon I was immersed in it. I
bought my first pair of skis, K2 244 Mid’s (later sold to
BT) and continued on the path. By the time I was at University
I had spent time at most of the famous ski areas of the West.
After graduation, a season in Europe fully opened my eyes to
the possibilities in the ski universe. Back to the LA grind was
the hardest but I still skied my butt off, night skiing every
Wednesday and Friday, weekends at Mammoth whenever I could.
One day I calculated how much I drove in
LA. I drove an hour to work and an hour home, five days a week,
ten hours. Forty hours in a month or one workweek. Twelve work
weeks in a year—three months of workweeks a year behind
the wheel, a slave to the steel. That’s when I dropped everything
and went skiing. Really went skiing. The depths that I had probed
to gain knowledge and improve my skiing was profound, so much
so that I felt it was in my best interest to journey to the most
inspiring and varied ski region in the world. So I bought a one-way
ticket and moved to Verbier, Switzerland.
Now fifteen years later things have come
full circle. Bernie Bernthal, with whom I have had some of my
most pleasurable and intense skiing adventures, is now K2 Brand
Director Europe. His newest concept: the 1st K2 Couloirs to
Bars Photo and Video Awards, presented by Marker, is an inspiring
series of events taking a whole new approach to showcasing talent,
both behind and in front of the lens. K2 is on a freeride mission,
one that started in 1971 with Barrymore and the Performers on
their hot-dogging quest, and continuing now, and on through the
deep and high-flying future.
The events, which will be held in four
of the hottest freeride areas in Europe, will feature professional
photographers, video filmmakers, as well as ambitious up-and-comers.
Each photographer and filmmaker will have 10 minutes to try and
mow down the jury and crowd in an all out rock video format.
But competition will be taking a stool at the very back of the
bar because Couloirs to Bars is more about bringing together
the exciting artists and athletes shaping today’s mountain
vision in skiing, snowboarding, and telemark. Emphasizing creative
images, editing and music selection, fun, thrills, adrenaline,
and pure stoke for the masses.
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The kick-off K2 Couloirs to Bars held on
December 16th at the world-famous Pub Mont Fort in Verbier was
a multimedia tour de force and a personal revelation.
The place was packed and humming by the
time I filled my mug and positioned myself next to the jury of
ex-Swiss tele champion Lisa Nicolas, mountain guide Hans Solmssen,
and 70’s circa Canadian hot-dogger turned Mountain Elvis,
Mike Abson aka Johnny Reno (yo, watch the hair). A big screen
TV filled a large portion of the main corner of the venue. Flat
screen monitors provided by Microsoft Media Center were mounted
at strategic locations, both upstairs and downstairs, around
Mobile Area K2 (MAK2) allowing tactical viewing for the beer-guzzling
troops.
Emcee Jean-Charles (JC) Luisier made the
first intro and Canadian photographer Yves Garneau kicked in
with his program. My immediate thought upon seeing the format
was how thoroughly computers have reestablished and altered the
way we see images, the change no less shocking than when Hollywood
first learned to talk.
The humble push button slide projector
gone to AV heaven alongside that old Bell& Howell; the oft-uninspiring
presenter replaced by Hollywood-style wizardry and professionalism.
Yves’s images took us through, in a time-line fashion, the
progression of wider shaped skis. Skiers blasting powder, then
the skis inspiring progressive air, then larger skis on larger
mountains, the images moving along to the tasty sounds Yves came
up with. Finally, he concluded that all modern skis have taken
their design cues from, bang! Snowboards! As the last beautiful
boarding images finished, the crowd cheered and started arguing
his conclusion. It seemed like a 50/50 split. |
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Drinkin' and conferring. The
jury pool, Hans Solmssen, Lisa Nicolas, and Johnny Reno. Ph.
Yorick Carroux |
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Bob and Finnish Mountain Guide
Extrordinaire, Pette Halme. Ph. Yorick Carroux |
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Establishing himself as one of today’s
elite ski and snowboard photographers, Jancsi Hadik’s editing
and presentation skill blew me away. Showcasing Whistler, Alaska,
Island Lake Lodge, and Verbier, Jancsi’s considerable computer
editing skills, his triple-zoom-out technique, music selection
and timing, perfectly showcased his athletes, most notably the
legendary Dominique Perret and the late, great Gilles Voirol.
The visual and aural tastiness, the latter courtesy of Cypress
Hill and 50 Cent, set the bar at a high level indeed.
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But then Myriam Lang-Willar stepped up
to throw down. Parisian by birth, pretty, petite, a killer skier
and telemarker to boot, Myriam was not intimidated by the two
who preceded her. Especially Jancsi, probably because Jancsi
is her husband and we all know that no ski wife is ever intimidated
by her worse half.
Myriam’s images came rapid-fire, 4/4
with the Black Eyed Peas, the fusillade of images machine-gunning
past my eyes, AK Launching straight through my cornea, burning
through the rods and cones and smacking bulls-eye into my cortex.
The onslaught, took everyone in the room by surprise, and me,
well, I became a believer.
I had seen plenty of slide shows over the
years, but Myriam’s style in particular, and the DVD computer
editing, rock and roll format, in general, is the way forward. |
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Jancsi Hadik, Myriam Lang-Willar,
and Bernie Bernthal talkin' smack. Ph. Yorick Carroux |
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The style and presentation of the photography
and video is moving parallel and in harmony with the skiing and
boarding that is its subject. I see the two moving together hand
in hand, the athletes and photographers rousing each other to
the pinnacle of excellence. It’s happening right now.
Finland’s Tero Repo’s subtle
photography style was represented in hilarious lifestyle shots
of two of Verbier’s most comic telemarkers, Arska and Hannu.
These two rising forces in barroom hilarity were captured full-stop
by Tero’s lens segueing into beautiful action shots of the
duo. Then Tero went old school with Heart’s Barracuda adding
razor teeth to the swimming montage.
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Finally, it was Mark Shapiro’s turn.
Marko, being the Godfather of ski photography,
was truly in his element. His Brando-like aura was betrayed however,
by the huge grin pasted on his face. JC ended his intro with,
“what else can we say about Marko?” And I yelled with
prescient timing, as I would find out a few moments later, “Marko
was at Woodstock!”
As the first telemark heavy images started,
some of your's truly, Ten Years After—live at Woodstock—kicked
in. And continued for all ten minutes of Marko’s presentation,
Alvin Lee’s hyper blues lines flowed, at one with Marko’s
amazing and serious mountain action. |
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Marko flashing back to 1969.
Ph. Yorick Carroux |
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It was an hour and 15 minutes that would
have taken the great Frenchman Cartier-Bresson’s breath
away had he been into skiing and boarding. And in the end Myriam’s
presentation got the nod with the Godfather Marko placing a stylish
second.
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The John Barleycorn festivities continued
as the program shifted to the video filmmakers. Big mountain
freeriding, state of the art snowboarding, huge inverted cliff
hucks, progressive air and new-school tricks, incredible gut-wrenching
base jumping, were all served up in a visual smorgasbord by the
likes of Gèraldine Fasnacht, Warren Smith, Nicolas &
Loris Falquet (aka Huck & Chuck), Phillipe Meier, Olivier
Vittel, and the talented Guido Perrini.
To my surprise, juxtaposed amongst all
the spectacular big air footage, Guido Perrini included the short
film he made of our telemark descent from a few seasons back
of the Marinelli Couloir, Macugnaga face of the Monte Rosa, the
longest couloir in the Alps. This clip drew much appreciation
and praise from the lubed-up crowd, perhaps because the Marinelli
has to rank up there as one of the finest Couloirs to Bars around. |
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Verbier's Biggest Legend of all, Scotland's
own Colin Morrison. Colin's antics over the years grants him,
on the knees we-are-not-worthy special status. Bob and Bernie.
Ph. Yorick Carroux
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Huck & Chuck got the final Golden Arska
with Guido pulling a well-deserved second.
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The Crew: Tero Repo, Yves Garneau, Myriam
Lang-Willar, Mark Shapiro, and Jancsi Hadik. They own three lenses
between the five of 'em. Ph. Yorick Carroux |
Swedish Phenomenon, Mountain
.Guide
and Telemarker, Jimmy Oden and Bob. Ph. Yorick Carroux
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The Party Rolls On
The next leg of the K2 Couloirs to Bars
juggernaut will be held in the freeride mecca that is Chamonix.
January 20th, 2005 is the date and the Micro Brasserie de Chamonix
(the MBC) the place. Hosted by the legendary K2 skier Gary Bigham
with music by his band, the Crevassholes, this is one event not
to be missed.
And the party rolls, like a brake-faded
260ft. motor home, through St. Anton, Austria on Feb. 23, 2005,
and finally Are, Sweden on Mar. 3, 2005.
Check out www.K2couloirstobars.com
for updates, news, and event photos.
Final Note
Regarding the Macugnaga Face: we flew up
there.
I had finished my season and was on the
sofa watching cartoons and thinking of a Big Mac when I got the
call. “Ok, Bob, now’s the time. We are going up to
do the Marinelli tomorrow. You in?”
Off the couch.
Why did we fly up the Monte Rosa? Because we could. It was a
lift ticket. A storm was moving in and we took the window, the
Marinelli notoriously fickle as a ski descent. I know the whole
heli debate is incendiary to some on Telemarktips, but I happen
to not agree.
I am voracious when it comes to skiing.
I want it all.
I adore skinning and climbing with my mates
and have done a fair bit of it. But I also dig heli skiing and
would love to do much more. (I am no trust-funder believe me).
I want it all.
The spectrum is it. Climb and ski Mt. Washington,
and heli the Ruby’s. Top out and ski Rainier and visit that
new small ski area in South Africa. Another 7000m peak, then
hook up with some mates in Wisconsin for the small hill quick-draw.
Tour the classic ski areas of the East, and heli ski the Bugaboos.
That peak in Death Valley, what’s it called? Telegraph Peak?
I wanna heli ski the Chugach and then tour with VT from his home.
Patagonia then Pennsylvania. I wanna ski with Ruedi, then have
Frank Baumann show me his Whistler backcountry. Himalchal and
Homewood. The plums in McLean’s, Turiano’s, and Dawson’s
guidebooks. Greenland, Iceland, and Lappland. Transylvania and
Tasmania. Skins, lifts, and heli. Country and Western.
I want to ride lifts, ski tour, and heli
everywhere…
And I’m gonna try. Why did we fly
to the top of Monte Rosa? Because we could.
It wasn’t even that expensive.
bobATverbier.ch
A lift ticket. The Marinelli. Ph: Mazarei
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