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No Comments [ Add Comment ]High Adventure film fest brings outdoors to Ogden
By NANCY VAN VALKENBURGJeff Lowe has every right to be bitter.
The Ogden man was once a globe-trotting, world-class climber, credited with scaling a thousand peaks never conquered before. Lowe was 50 when he learned his rapid loss of strength and balance was due to progressive multiple sclerosis, an incurable disease that attacks the central nervous system.
"Sure, I would love to still be climbing and skiing the way I did, but I did that for 40 years," said Lowe, now 58 and the executive director of the Ogden Climbing Park.
"The real tragedy would be if I had never gotten to do that, then become disabled. For me, it's much easier, having that experience. I've had more outdoor adventure time than any one person deserves."
Lowe, who walks with canes, is a positive person, determined to share with others the truths he learned during his decades challenging nature and himself.
The sharing begins Thursday with the inaugural High Adventure Mountain Film Festival, which lasts four days and nights in downtown Ogden. It is based at Peery's Egyptian Theater and the Eccles Conference Center. Lowe decided to create the multiday festival after positive response to a several-hour mini festival he produced last year as part of another outdoor-sports-oriented event associated with the downtown Harvest Moon Festival.
The adventure spirit
The festival will feature 32 films shot in more than 32 countries. It will include four world premiere films, three panel discussions, three parties and 14 Lowe-MAX awards, given to winning films.
The festival's mission is to celebrate adventure and the wonders of the natural world.
"Adventure, in my mind, is about connecting in a visceral way with the world around you," Lowe said. "It's about putting yourself in situations that sometimes require creative problem solving, and stretching yourself beyond limits you might have thought you had. It's about finding out more about your own capacity."
Lowe was famous for his love of light and fast climbs up technically difficult routes in the most remote mountain ranges on Earth. In the late 1960s and early '70s, he specialized in big-wall climbing, and was renowned as a free-climbing master, using hands, feet and body parts to climb, with no artificial aids.
The focus is intense, stakes are high, and lessons are everywhere.
"One huge lesson is responsibility for your own actions," Lowe said. "You learn that your own actions are what keep you safe or not safe. With all the outdoor adventure sports, there's a pretty direct correlation between what you choose to do and what happens to you. Kids pick up on that pretty quick.
"Kids can't learn that playing video games in front of the TV. With video games, if someone dies, they get up and keep playing."
Strong start
Lowe knows that not everybody is free to go climb a mountain. Watching adventurers face their fears and test their limits on film is the next best thing.
"I think some of these films may trigger a reconnection in more mature audience members to a part of their life that may be forgotten or compartmentalized as part of the past," said Lowe. "They may be inspired, in a way. I'm not saying they will go off and run some class-6 river in Africa. I think that reconnecting to this spirit of adventure is what we are trying to showcase here."
Lowe and his Ogden Climbing Park associate, Deanna Byck, decided just a year ago to mount a full-scale film festival, complete with multiple days of screenings, juried awards and panel discussions.
It's not a feat that most people could pull off. But Lowe has an advantage in knowing many of the participants personally.
<25CF> Appearing as part of the "Strong Women" panel are Jennifer Jordan, author of "Savage Summit" and director of "Women of K2"; Kelly Perkins, heart-transplant recipient who climbs mountains; Margo Talbot, a competitive ice climber; and Ali Geiser, a book editor and climber.
<25CF> Guests for an environmental preservation panel, "Preserving the Crags," include Lowe; Doug Robinson, author, filmmaker, environmentalipresentatives from the outdoor industry, the U.S. Forest Service and Ogden City.
<25CF> Panelists for "Above the Summit" include Chris Waddell, the most decorated male skier in Paralympic history; Malcolm Daly, executive director of Paradox Sports and an amputee climber; Warren Macdonald, adventurer, author and motivational speaker and double amputee; and Perkins and Lowe.
Also on hand will be climbers Yuji Hirayama and Hans Florine, who last spring set the record for the fastest climb up "The Nose" of El Capitan, in Yosemite Valley, Calif.
Roger and Michael Brown, a father-and-son filmmaking team based in Colorado, will present some of their films. The two have won a multitude of Emmys and other awards.
And in town the last few weeks, helping to "birth" the new festival are two more of Lowe's friends. Walter Daroshin, festival jury chairman, also is president of Canada's Leo Awards, equivalent to America's Oscars. Alan Formánek is founding director of mountain film festivals in Vancouver, British Columbia, n Bratislava, Slovakia.
Local help
Also consulting is Lowe's new friend, Scott Halford, founding director of Ogden's Foursite Film Festival.
"He has been able to accomplish a lot, very fast," Halford said. "He's trying to jump right into it. The festival is a very ambitious project, and I'm sure they will pull it off really well."
Marshall Moore, executive director of the Utah Film Commission, said the High Adventure Mountain Film Festival organizers met with his staff and made one of the strongest presentations the office had seen in a long time.
"I'm confident they will be able to pull it off," Moore said. "We fully support the festival, and are excited to attend. I think this makes 26 festivals we have in Utah. We hope they will be around for years to come."
Byck, of Ogden, serves as the festival's executive director.
"I think everyone is coming because they love Jeff so much," she said. "When Jeff asks people to come, they come. He's a lot more famous outside Utah than in. He was one of the most important climbers in North America. He was the first to establish climbing routes all over the world, from the Himalayas to South America. He was the only climber ever featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And he doesn't climb anymore, but he's one of the most positive people I've ever met. His vision is to bring the mountains to the community."
The place
Ogden is the perfect setting for a festival, Lowe believes. The first mountains he ever loved are here.
"I was raised by a father and mother who were very adventurous themselves," Lowe said. "My father, Ralph, was a lawyer in town, but also a climber, skier and rafter. He just loved the outdoors and outdoor adventure sports, and he introduced all eight of us kids to that."
Lowe was ski racing and climbing on his own by his teen years, and left Ogden the day he graduated from high school. After college in California, Lowe spent most of his adult life in Boulder, Colo. He returned to Ogden about six years ago, to help his mother in her final years.
"She passed away, and by then, I had gotten involved with (Ogden mayor) Matthew Godfrey, trying to let the world know about what a great outdoor playground we have here in Northern Utah," Lowe said. PREVIEW
l WHAT: High Adventure Mountain Film Festival
l WHEN: Various hours, Thursday-Sept. 21
l WHERE: Peery's Egyptian Theater and Eccles Conference Center, 2415 Washington Blvd., Ogden
l TICKETS: $10-$15/screenings; $15-$25/panels, lunch panels; $15-$50/parties. www.uthamfest.com.
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