Banff Mountain Film Festival, night #3

The marathon is over! Tonight was the last night, and I am now satiated with "mountain movies". I have to say this year's selection of flicks was much better than last year's. Much more focused on the sports, and each night had movies also focused on the environment and our destructive effect on our planet, usually willful at that.

Crux led tonight's selection again, and I was just as amazed tonight as I was last night. I guess it helps if you started out doing bike tricks with Cirque du Soleil...

Then we moved on to the 12-minute Dosage Volume V: Meltdown showing one damn good trad-climbin' woman doing one damn hard trad route — 5.14c as I recall... and yes, my palms were sweating again.

Red Gold was tonight's main enviro film — 54 minuets showing salmon-fishing life in Alaska and the opposition of the locals to a planned open-pit and in-ground gold and copper mine at the headwaters of the river that is key to the salmon. Of course the developers who want to build the mine promise that there will be no problems... right... sure... 'cause that's almost how all mine operations go, right? No problems whatsoever...

Patagonian Winter was a priceless 31 minutes of Andy Kirkpatrick and Ian Parnell attempting to and never really climbing Patagonia's Torre Egger in winter. Yes, that's right, folks... you heard it... in winter. Somehow they were trying to convince themselves that it would be so much better than trying to do it in the summer. Anyway, their antics and attitudes were hilarious, and it does just go to show you that I've always been right when I say that ice really does belong in a glass.

Papiroflexia was an interesting three-minute animation, the point of which still escapes me... 'nough said there.

Next up was the 18-minute The Last Frontier - Papua New Guinea, with some crazy white-water kayakers making the run from the underground headwaters of one of that country's rivers out to the ocean. Along the way we get to see some pretty cool white-water runs, including a 50 foot drop over a waterfall, and at the same time get some commentary on the logging that is happening in the region, and how it was likely to destroy yet another biodiversity hotspot. So, there was a bit of environmental stuff in this one too, which was good.

Finally, we ended with 12 minuets of insane... well, I guess one would call it skiing... to me it looked like falling off the top of a snow-covered mountain with the skis occasionally touching snow... but then what do I know? ... anyway... in Under the Influence. Kind of cool. Won't see me doing it. :-)

So there you go. Glad this year went well from my perspective. I'll be back next year.