Mountainfilm 2025 In the Books

I first came to Telluride on a tour bus as a college student from Michigan. Twenty years later,  I've now attended the Mountainfilm Festival 15 times, spending the majority of my Memorial Day weekends in that enchanted box canyon.

I'm not sure I'd still be in this filmmaking business if it weren't for Mountainfilm and the inspiration it provides, championing independent documentaries and reminding me that this unique genre of storytelling is valued. That attention to detail makes the work feel important and appreciated—the antithesis of the short lifespan films get with a YouTube release or social media cut down. There have been sacrifices to chase this weird career, but that long weekend at the end of May every year is not one of them.

Now that we’re home and recovered from sleepless nights and deep conversations, it’s back to projects and future collaborations. Hosting duties on The Cutting Edge podcast continue with a new episode about Anna Pfaff’s recent first ascent in Alaska; Snail Hunters opens up for one more round of revisions before shipping to summer and fall film festivals; a big shoot on the John Day River with Oregon Public Broadcasting; and the broader preparations for a big transition begin as I look ahead to my forties and a rapidly changing media landscape.

I’d love to chat about it with anyone at a similar crossroads—we’re all in this together!

THE CUTTING EDGE Podcast

For a really long time, climbing was the most important thing in my life.

I've had some of my life's most defining moments in the mountains; discovered so much about myself in the mountains; forged many of my most meaningful relationships in the mountains; broken through some of my proudest triumphs and suffered some of my greatest defeats in the mountains. It also gave me my career.

My relationship with climbing has changed a lot over the last ten years. Ultimately, gravity caught up with me... four hip surgeries took away a lot of mobility, three ear surgeries and hearing loss messed up my balance, and Covid's inexplicable obsession with me has led to setback after setback with cardio fitness. But one thing has never changed: my fascination with the stories and characters that emerge from climbing has only grown. You can take the dude out of climbing, but you can't take climbing out of the dude.

With that, it is super fun to share that I have taken on hosting duties for The Cutting Edge podcast, a collaboration with the American Alpine Club and American Alpine Journal. It's been great so far, bringing the chops I've developed producing several previous shows and my knowledge of climbing history to episodes about the most important climbs from around the world. So far we've covered the first "flash" of Yosemite's El Capitan, the Fastest Known Time traversing The Alps, and an innovative first ascent in Alaska, and there's much more to come.

Climbing never ceases to surprise, but one thing can be counted on: we will never run out of stories to tell about human beings engaging with our planet's vertical landscapes. And if nothing else, it gives me a very special opportunity to stay connected with the sport I love so much.

If interested, give th episodes a listen and let me know what you think! The first three episodes are linked below and also available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Latest VIP Interviews for the American Alpine Club

Alan Watts (Bend, Oregon 2024)

Jim Karn (Bend, Oregon 2024)

Long before the term "sport climbing" was coined, American climbers had a contentious relationship with bolting on rapel and "hang dogging," or the practice of rehearsing a climb from bolt to bolt in order to piece together a red point. However, certain climbers like Alan Watts saw the potential for the sport to move forward if it embraced a more sporting technique, letting the gymnastic challenge of a climb become the primary focus when boldness and style had previously been the more important metrics. In 1986, the American Alpine Club called a meeting of the country's luminaries to discuss the conflict between the "traditionalists" (those committed to the ground-up free climbing ethics) and the "tricksters" (whom we could now call sport climbers). They called it The Great Debate, featuring climbers like Alan Watts, Lynn Hill, Ron Kauk, John Bachar, Henry Barber, Rob Robinson, Todd Skinner and Christian Griffith. Though it didn't settle the issue once and for all, it brought the conversation into the open and thus American sport climbing was born, primarily on the welded tuff faces of Oregon's Smith Rock. Last week's interviews with the godfather of American sport climbing Alan Watts and competition legend Jim Karn shed new light on this fascinating time in climbing history—and how different things would be today if not for their innovation and persistence. 

Artificial Intelligence in Creative Industries

Aurora Borealis near the northern border between Washington and Idaho. No AI was used in the creation of this image.

As an English Literature major in college, on exam day I would head to the book store and pick up an authorized Blue Book. This ensured there were no notes, passages, or otherwise illicit content that I could draw from in my exam. I would sit in a room with all the other students and all of their authorized Blue Books under the close watch of my professor(s) who would roam the hall like a sentry. All of this was to make sure that the ideas in my writing were mine; the grammar and structure of my writing were based on my personal grasp of the English language; and most importantly, the concepts and arguments were based on my own critical thinking. In fact, I would say that more than anything else, my college education was intended to teach me the meaning of authorship and how important it is that the ideas I present—and how I present them—come from my mind alone.

This the fundamental basis of my anxiety around the current use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the creative industry. Many of my colleagues utilize this "agent" to craft words, sentences, paragraphs and more that they claim as their own. There are no mechanisms or regulations in place to prohibit this, no professor(s) standing at the front of the lecture hall, and thus no real barriers against this type of publication... except, of course, the moral barriers. And this causes me a great deal of hand wringing frustration as I see the entire concept of authorship undermined by this behavior. I don't know what the answer is but my hope is that the creative industry will do a better job of owning up when an idea or it's presentation are not entirely one’s own. Otherwise we are looking at the utter erosion of authorial integrity, a value that I've been trained my whole life to defend.

2020

During the 2020 protests in Portland, Oregon, anyone planning to video or photograph the demonstrations was asked to avoid identifiable faces or traits that could implicate protestors, for a variety reasons. For one reason: people were organizing complex acts of resistance that needed to remain anonymous. For another reason: a lot of what was happening was illegal.

Think what you want about that time, it was no "one thing". It was as nuanced as the fabric of our society.

As a Portland resident who marched against injustice, it was a meaningful act of participation in something I care about. For some others, it became a rallying call for their very soul. For others still, it was simply an opportunity to f**k sh*t up.

As the year continued to devolved and the protests became riots, going on for more than 100 consecutive nights while the worst global pandemic in 100 years raged on, everyone was wondering what the hell was going on in Portland—home of "put a bird on it" and kooky airport carpet.

It became an interesting challenge to document something without revealing too much, especially during daylight hours, and this photo has haunted me the most from that time because of the murkiness of certain details and the clarity of others. It bears an uncanny resemblance of my memories from that summer.

Whatever your opinion, know that it was complicated, and I personally hope that someday the whole story gets told with the compassion and accuracy that was so impossible to find in the moment. It will be a tough nut to crack as a documentary, but utterly essential.