Get Off Your Phone And Go See A Ski Movie With Your Friends

A few nights ago, I was picking up a few slices for dinner at a pizza place. My partner was out of town, so I was cooking less than usual, scrounging together some version of “boy dinner” most nights of the week (sue me). This time, it was pizza.

While waiting in line, I overheard two teenagers talking behind me about trying to get “front row seats” at the Teton Gravity Research movie that was playing at the local theater that night—they wanted to be up front so they could take advantage of a ski movie classic: swag tosses. I briefly felt like I was staring into a mirror, left imagining the time I, too, spent discussing my plans for a night out at a ski movie with my friends when I was young. The rose-colored glasses slid over my eyes.

Back in the day, those fall movie showings were central to my adolescent relationship with skiing, the closest I ever got to attending church. They told me which skiers to idolize and cemented the pro skiing dream that occupies the minds of countless groms. I wanted to be like Sammy, Tom, or Sarah. I wanted to be somebody in skiing. And, of course, I showed up with a similar goal as those teens I saw in the pizza place: hopefully bagging a sick t-shirt during a swag toss so I had something cool -- preferably three sizes too big -- to wear at school the next day. A signed poster from whoever starred in the movie I was seeing only sweetened the deal.

When I left the theatre after watching those films, my breath floating towards the orange-tinted streetlights above in the cool fall air, the coming ski season would flash before me like a montage, a mini movie starring and directed by me. I’d have the best tricks and the coolest outerwear, occasionally settling down before the camera to talk about the gnarly line I’d just put down. These visions were blueprints for the life I hoped to live, informed by the creations of legendary ski movie production houses like TGR, Level 1, and Poor Boyz.

15-odd years after my initial ski movie educations, I was headed to the same destination as those teens who’d jogged my memory. My companions and I for TGR’s Legend Has It walked downtown after a quick round of pool at Flippers, scanned our tickets at the door, grabbed some seats, and settled in for the show.

It’s different now. Everything is. I’m not 14 anymore. Still, that energy that first captured my heart all those years ago remains.

The opening montage of Legend Has It was set to a song by the Offspring. Angsty lyrics, jarring guitar riffs, and a strong whiff of the early 2000s filled the room. On-screen was a who’s who of the TGR crowd hucking like nobody's business at Palisades Tahoe last winter. The snow was deep. The cliff jumps, thanks to the bottomless landings, were barely calculated. And in my gut, I felt it: that sensation. That urge to click in and point em’ downhill, the churn of the wind and snow filling my ears.

Back in the day, that’s all there was. Ski movies were the only accessible format of ski media, aside from print, which provided a different, more cerebral kind of high. But now, a great splintering has begun. You can watch skiing anywhere at any time. The internet is dominated by the newest evolution in the media space: really short-form content, namely Instagram reels and TikToks. Over the course of a week, it’s entirely possible for the average skier to consume a ski movie’s worth of media by watching 100-plus five or ten-second videos online.

You don’t need me to tell you the drawbacks here. The social media horse is well and truly dead, so I won’t beat it too much further, but I will say this: catching a five-second powder skiing clip while procrastinating isn’t the same thing as sitting down to watch a ski movie. Sure, that clip might get you to think about skiing briefly, but it won’t make you dream of the last time you found yourself waist-deep in the good stuff. Only a well-thought-out ski movie segment can do that.

But ski movies -- particularly when watched lived -- are bigger than the viewership habits of a single skiing fan. Whenever I arrived at a show as a youth, I’d glance around and catch the roster of my local ski scene. Sure, the pros on stage saw the most attention, but I was more interested in the crowd: ski coaches, local legends, my older brother, and his intimidating friends decked out in tall-ts -- always fresh from a “break” in the alley behind the venue.

In Montana, I’m a semi-recent transplant, so I’m less affixed to the local ski scene here than I have been in the past. Still, I could sense the invisible threads connecting the Legend Has It attendees. There were ski shop employees, avalanche forecasters, and grown-up skiers with kids in tow. Maybe some were co-workers with one another—or young friends on a local freestyle team. Regardless, there they were. Catching-up. Shooting the sh*t. Discussing where to buy passes. Thinking of potential lines. In those conversations, the ski season, an almost illusory concept during the warmer months, suddenly became real as it gained weight and shape.

It’s the people that make skiing, so it logically follows that it’s the crowd that makes ski movies, at least in part, worth attending. I’m not just talking about observing the little connections that skiing foments in any given community, as I often find myself joyously doing. The crowd is pure energy, rumbling excitedly whenever a skier lands a huge trick on screen or wildly scrambling as a piece of swag frisbees off stage. And that energy -- the stoke for the coming winter -- is free for the taking. You can skim a bit off the top and take it home with you, giving it a big huff whenever the forecast calls for snow.

Ski movies are a pillar of the skiing community. They are better shared. They bring us together. They connect us with old and new friends. They actualize the long-dormant stoke for skiing. They make us feel skiing in a way that nothing else can. Sure, they’re a holdover from a different time -- the ski media space has evolved, promising us instant access to quick-hit ski content whenever we want it. As potent as that promise is, I urge you to reject it quietly. Doing so isn’t looking backward or a thinly veiled concession to Luddism. It’s the opposite. Look around. More ski movies are available than ever, covering a wider swath of subject matters than in the past. A ski movie about professional skiing moms? You got it. Henrik Harlaut proving that he’s still at the top of his game after all these years? Also on the menu.

All these films ask is for one of your evenings -- don’t just watch them at home, and remember to invite your friends. In return, you might find yourself remembering what got you into this whole skiing thing in the first place.

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