Free chair, free shred
Josh Dueck Brings his story to 5Point
Published on April 27, 2012
It is often said in the world of skiing that this sport, this peculiar sport where we strap boards to our feet, propel ourselves with sticks and arc our way down snow-covered mountains, gives us freedom. It is also often said in the world of skiing that this freedom is profound—a feeling like nothing else. Indeed, in this world where mountains and snow and motion collide, it is said that skiing is a profound feeling like nothing else.
Since his paralysis in 2004, skier Josh Dueck has won a silver medal at the Paralympics, a gold at the Winter X Games, and landed the first ever backflip on a sit-ski. (Photo courtesy of Josh Dueck)
Josh Dueck, star of Switchback Productions’ The Freedom Chair, knows all of this. As a former head coach of the Silver Star Freestyle Ski Club in Vernon, B.C., he experienced it all first-hand. His students—skiers like T.J. Schiller, Josh Bibby, Riley Leboe, and Justin Dorey—are now etched into freeskiing’s history, a tapestry of cold mornings, switch takeoffs and smooth landings.
In 2004, however, the then 23-year-old Dueck overshot a jump during training for the Canadian Junior Nationals and fell 100 feet to earth, dislocating his back and severing his spinal cord. He lost all feeling below his waist. Yet now, eight years later, Dueck is a Paralympic silver medalist, an X Games mono skier X gold medalist and has landed the first backflip on a sit-ski. Credit that profound feeling. Read the rest of this entry »
When you give everything, what do you have left?
Catching up with filmmaker and photographer Tyler Stableford
Published on April 24, 2012
A book title like Beyond the Mountain begs questions of an existential—as well as epistemological—nature. What is there? Who is there? And, once you find it, how do you know you’re there?
For filmmaker Tyler Stableford, reading such a title lead not only to inquiry but also to inspiration, especially when the author was world-class mountain climber Steve House.
“I was really moved [by] Steve’s book,” said Stableford. “One of the things that was unique was his confession that he came home [from many of his climbs] more broken and more empty than we he left.”
"Shattered," filmed at Bridalveil Falls in Telluride, CO, tells the confessions of climber Steve House. (Photo courtesy of Tyler Stableford)
And so Stableford worked with House, who has made three first ascents on Denali, opened new routes on major faces in the Canadian Rockies, and climbed an entirely new route—alpine style—on the Rupal Face on Naga Parbat, Pakistan, to produce the short film Shattered. The film will premiere at the 5Point Film Festival this Thursday, April 26. Shattered, as Stableford attests, is much more than a climbing film.
“The route itself is not of any importance, it’s not about him climbing Bridle Veil Falls in Telluride,” said Stableford. “It’s about Steve’s mental journey, and the visuals are there to support that.” Read the rest of this entry »
Exploring the unexplored at the 5Point Film Festival
From canyoneering to liquid mountaineering, we pay tribute to adventure
Published on April 23, 2012
Math, as they say, speaks for itself. But when the origin of your Grand Canyon adventure begins in its neighborhood, pure idea, what speaks then? Well for Rich Rudow, Todd Martin and Dan Ransom, the answer is, fittingly, a mathematician. Before every new slot canyoneering journey below the rim, Rudow, Martin, and Ransom—who together have assembled a year of their Grand Canyon explorations into a film titled The Last of the Great Unknown, which will make its world premier at the 5Point Film Festival in Carbondale, CO this year—would consult the notes of Harvey Butchart, a math professor at then-Arizona State College (now Northern Arizona University) who is credited with having discovered over 100 rim-to-river routes within Grand Canyon.
“We’re absolutely using Harvey’s maps, he showed how to get to the canyons,” said Rudow. “He’s usually the first place you stop when you’re looking at how to get there.”
"The Last of the Great Unknown," a film by Dan Ransom about canyoneering the untouched slots within Grand Canyon, will make its world premier at the 5Point Film Festival this April. (Photo courtesy of *******)
The first place, true, but with technology light years ahead of Butchart—not to mention Tom Myers and George and Allen Steck (who also “laid the base” for Grand Canyon-eering, as Ransom puts it)—Rudow, Martin, and Ransom have solved more unsolvable canyoneering problems than Butchart uncovered in his lifetime, and all since 2007. Before then, much of the team’s hiking to the rim, belaying in, and paddling out was essentially impossible. Read the rest of this entry »
Completion on Meru
Published on March 29, 2012
Listen to climber-filmer-artist extraordinaire Renan Ozturk talk about what he’ll be showing at the 5Point Film Festival this year and you get the sense that there’s much more to climbing for this Boulder, CO resident than just, well, climbing. In speaking of his ascent up Meru Central in India via the Shark’s Fin last October, for instance—for which he and climbing partners Jimmy Chin and Conrad Anker were 2012 Piolet d’Or nominees—Ozturk doesn’t fail to mention that Meru is the center of the universe in the Hindu religion, or that the sacred Ganges River finds its source near the beginning of their climb.
Renan Ozturk (pictured), Jimmy Chin, and Conrad Anker successfully made the first-ever ascent of Mt. Meru in India via the Shark's Fin on October 2, 2011. The trio had come up 150 meters short of the summit after spending 19 days on the wall in 2008. (Photo courtesy of *******)
Combine these details with the fact that Ozturk himself was involved in a near-deadly ski accident six months prior to October and that the same trio had climbed the same route in 2008, only to come 150 meters short of the summit, and you only begin to see the big picture. Yes, this climb was much, much, more than a climb. Read the rest of this entry »
Powers to the People
Published December 6, 2011
PARK CITY, UT—Ross Powers is a snowboarding legend, having won Olympic gold in the Salt Lake City halfpipe in 2002 before most recently converting to snowboardcross—at the World Cup level, no less. Yet the South Londonderry, VT native would not have the success he’s had without the support of his Stratton Mountain community, which is why in 2010 he launched the Level Field Fund (LFF) to offer financial assistance to other promising athletes. Dating back to October 2010, LFF has awarded 53 grants benefitting 40 athletes for a total of over $137,000 dollars.
“We’re trying to help U.S. athletes in all sports,” said Powers, whose LFF has awarded grants to U.S. skateboarders, kayakers, skeleton and taekwondo athletes in addition to skiers and snowboarders. Powers has also teamed up with fellow snowboarder (and U.S. Team member) Seth Westcott, skier Daron Rahlves and swimmers Michael Phelps and Lenny Krayzelburg to find grant-winning athletes. Read the rest of this entry »
One hungry Gator swims back to China
Why Shanghai-bound (and Rhode Island native) Elizabeth Beisel couldn’t be happier
Published on July 28, 2011
Sometimes, even when you’re staring at the bottom of a pool, a change of scenery still makes waves. For Saunderstown-born Elizabeth Beisel, 18, a member of the US Women’s Swimming and Diving Team, such change has meant an up-shift of gears.
Indeed Beisel, a 2010 graduate of North Kingston High School who is currently competing at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai through July 31, recently completed her first year of school as a Gator at the University of Florida, where the already-energetic Rhode Islander injected even more life into her swimming career.
Saunderstown native Elizabeth Beisel (right) will compete at the FINA World Championships in Shanghai from Jul 24-31, 2011. (Photo courtesy of Mike Comer/Pro Swim Visuals)
“Working with a different group of people like I’ve had in the first year of college has refreshed the way I look at the sport,” wrote Beisel via email as she traveled with the US team on her way to Shanghai. “And I’m starting to like [swimming] a lot more than I did a few years ago just because of the change.”
Beisel, who will compete in the 200-meter backstroke and 400-meter individual medley events to be held Friday through Sunday in Shanghai, swims at Florida under the direction of coach Gregg Troy, who has won 26 national titles during his time in Gainesville and will coach the US Men’s team at the London Olympics next August.
Troy, who has seen his fair-share of Gators-turned world-class swimmers—such as Beijing Olympic medalists Dara Torres and Ryan Lochte—can attest that Beisel’s reformed passion has already shown itself in the practice pool. (Beisel also competed at the Beijing games in 2008, though after posting the best time in the 400 IM prelims did not medal in the final.)
“She has taken her enjoyment of the sport to a new level,” wrote Troy via email. “The energy she brings to practice has created a very likable situation [and] the result has been a greater consistency in training.”
Yet for Beisel, this weekend in Shanghai will be the test to see if practicing consistently translates to sustained top results in pool competition. In the buildup to FINA, for instance, the University of Florida hosted the Southeastern Conference Swimming and Diving Championships in late February, where Beisel won the two events she will swim in China—and notably set an SEC record in the 400-yard IM in the process.
However, in the NCAA Championship meet a month later in Minneapolis, the SEC Freshman of the Year and soon-to-be All-American placed second and third in her two trademark events, the 400IM and 200 back, respectively. Still—and especially for an athlete who trained through sectionals and has only recently begun her seasonal tapering—mental toughness may very well take the day this weekend.
“Coach Troy drills into our heads that we need to be confident when we swim, no matter what,” wrote Beisel. “All you can do is depend on your mental capacity and how confident you are and that’s been a new mentality I’ve had in the last year that’s helped me improve a lot, especially going from club swimming to college swimming.”
Added Troy, “[We have a] training environment with a large group of very experienced athletes who focus on competition at the highest level, [combined with the] ability for us to consistently train at a level that is very intense.”
Indeed, since Troy is the Olympic men’s coach—which requires additional focus on long-course training and competition—Gainesville is more than your typical college pool and attracts swimmers, like Beisel, with international goals on the mind. And yet as Troy emphasized, Florida even goes so far as to make it a priority, gaining ample support from both administration and staff, such as from associate head coaches Martyn Wilby (1982-1986 British National Team member) and Anthony Nesty, a UF alum who won the first-ever Olympic medal for his home country of Suriname in the 1988 Seoul Games—and a gold at that.
“This allows us the ability to work with the athletes in a variety of different styles,” wrote Troy. “Our athletes like Elizabeth who have the opportunity to do something special at the international level will have even more training and racing opportunities than usual.”
And so for Beisel, who noted that she still misses home, where “everyone knows everybody,” she’s at the same time gaining a new sense of place, and one on a global scale.
“It’s going to be really exciting to see all of the other swimmers,” she wrote, “especially since the whole group didn’t taper together. We’re always going to be representing the
University of Florida as well as our nations and we’re a really close-knit group. I can’t wait to see how they swim at Worlds.”