Visit with Chris Davenport

How cool, to drive up to Davenport’s house near here and talk fourteeners for a while. Did some of it in front of a camera to make background footage for the coming 14ers flick that Dav and his crew are working on. Ben Galland, director and main camera guy, is working hard at getting something done in time for fall release and the Banff film festival. Big news is the backcountry skiing film sponsors are letting Ben edit to over 50 minutes, and include more mountain culture content. Could this be the extreme ski flick we’ve been waiting for, the one that tells a real story instead of stringing a bunch of pretty pictures together with loud music? After a sneak preview of the script I think so (and I’m sure the music will still be loud, though worthy.)

Dav and I lounging in his garage-shop, excellent poster collection (and the ski quiver isn’t too shabby). The guy really has had an amazing career and sure can tell good stories about his adventures. I liked hearing about racing in the 24 Hours of Aspen, super core!

Dav related that the film had a new sponsor. Surprise. Enjoy AFTER your climb, not before. Should be tasty at the Aspen premier. (Is it problematic having an alcohol company as a sponsor? Comment here.)

After the Davenport house we had lunch down here in Carbondale at Dos Gringos, then filmed a chat about the backcountry skiing binding collection. We played around with the old junk I skied all my 14ers on, then compared to the latest Fritschi Freeride that Chris used this winter. It’s actually somewhat amazing how well the older bindings worked, but they were indeed quirky, especially the Ramers. We compared skis as well — my 1980s randonnee planks look like splinters compared to what were using these days. My belief is that today’s wider and more stable skis are creating a renaissance of ski mountaineering in Colorado because they even out the quirks of our snowpack and allow a smoother style of skiing that’s perhaps less likely to trigger avalanche. Dav’s movie will prove it.