BARRY CORBET FILM FEST: Jackson legends out in force

Leave it to big-mountain skiing pioneer Doug Coombs to enter the film festival here in style. It's not everyday when you can turn your head literally in all directions and see Coombs hanging above you, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard standing on your right and surf God Mickey "The Mongoose" Munoz on your left. Then you look around some more and the who's who of Jackson's local legends stand out like climber and photographer Jimmy Chin, ski-mountaineer Mark Newcomb, tele skier A..J. Cargill, freeskier Shroder Baker and adventure cinematographer Peter Pilafian. That was the reality of the Second Annual Barry Corbet Film Festival Jan. 19-21.

One minute the audience is watching old footage of hotdoggers leaping into Corbet’s Couloir, the next Coombs is repelling from the rafters above audience heads sporting a goofy hat and ski gear to introduce the world premiere of his film “The Otterbody Experience” about his ski descent of Jackson Hole's 13,770-foot peak.

The Alpinist magazine event was a celebration of adventure icons like Corbet and Coombs, Chouinard and Munoz, and it just happens that the whole town is filled with them.

Coombs was our emcee that night. The goggle-shaped tan around his 40-something aging eyes made him look like he had weathered a few mountain storms in his lifetime, but his enthusiasm for the skiing lifestyle still stood out as loudly as his accomplishments.

He was the two-time World Extreme Skiing Champion (1990 and 1992); he introduced extreme skiing to the Lower 48 with his steeps camps in Jackson Hole (1993); he has made more than 250 first ski descents around the world; and he guided the first commercial ski descent of the Grand Teton (2005). He like Barry Corbet, the man Corbet's is named after, are quintessentially hardcore Jackson. Corbet, however, died on Dec. 18, 2004 from cancer. A member of the first American team to summit Mount Everest in 1963, Corbet was a Jackson skier, businessman and filmmaker who was forced to launch a second career as a writer and editor when a helicopter accident left him paralyzed at age 32.

This film fest is the brainchild of Alpinist Editor Christian Beckwith who wanted an event that steered away from what he called the mainstream ski movies with "thumping soundtracks" and instead explore the spirit of adventure in all of its forms and vulnerabilities from skiing to climbing. All proceeds were given to the Central Asia Institute to help the people devastated by the Pakistan earthquake.

The three nights of films were presented in the categories of snow, surf and stone. But it was "snow" night that drew the biggest crowd. About 900 people crammed into Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village on Thursday night to get a glimpse of Coombs who has never before publicly addressed his hometown of Jackson Hole.

It was chaos. "I think people started getting in free," said one of the organizers, pointing to the overflowing crowd on the floor. During the kickoff party before "snow" night's films, more Jackson VIPs filled Vertical restaurant from photographer Greg Von Doersten to freeskier Charlotte Moats. Rumors at the party were that Coombs was not drinking the wine and food aplenty because he was practicing his grand entrance. Poking fun of the rumored repel and the subject of Coomb's film, Chouinard said, “Give me a 1,000-foot rope and I could ski the Grand.” (Purists say using ropes to ski the Grand is cheating but even Coombs couldn't do that on the Otter Body.) Though Coombs didn’t point it off the snowfield, he did take some turns on what he called a “bullet proof” snowpack and survived to tell the tale. The film marked only the second time cameras were carried up the mountain to film a descent. Coombs had skied the Grand 10 times and guided it four, but it was the Otter Body's dangerous line that had him jonesing for a few good turns.

"I've seen it not skiable 5 to 6 years in a row," he said about the snowpack. But with the help of his climbing buddy Doug Workman, the two documented their good fortune one spring day last year.

During the intermission, Bill Briggs, the first man to ski the Grand in 1971, made a special appearance.

"The highlight of the night," said freeskier Jessica Baker, "was the standing O for Briggs. He made me want to cry; he’s my hero."

But of the four movies played that night, it was Pilafian's that won the People's Choice Award. The director of photography for surf cult film "Riding Giants" had successfully (within a month) created a documentary on North America's most famous ski run, Corbet's Couloir. Can't you just see those hotdoggers now?