Over the past 5 years, mountain biking has become my summer staple, to compliment skiing in the winter. I enjoy the cross training benefits and the feeling of flowing down trails with good friends, hooting and hollering. It’s one heck of a good time!
Last summer, cinematographer, Eric Gonzalez, and I created our first video together, showcasing the round trip aspect of riding door to door on Rossland BC’s killer trail network.
Check that out here.This summer we were inspired to make another project, following the same round-trip feel as the first, but with a bit of a different direction.
The idea took us to one of Canada’s picturesque locations, Revelstoke, BC. The Revelstoke landscape is dominated with mountains that reach high into the alpine, and the town is full of crazy-fit people who call themselves "Alpine Addicts". Needless to say, it was the perfect location for this project, and a familiar area to me as I spend the winters skiing in these same mountains.
A friend offered us his tent trailer for the trip so we loaded the truck and hit the road to Revy. We were packed to the brim with gear.
We arrived in Revy then headed north towards Mica Creek, setup camp along side what was once the flowing Columbia river, now a tranquil lake due to damming of the river. A spectacular location.
Over the next week we spent a solid 10 hours a day working on the project. We started our days driving an hour up a logging road that reached tree-line. From there we rode our bikes into the alpine and began our work. As we banked the majority of trail footage we needed I started to look to the alpine peaks, beyond the trail. The draw to the highest location was strong, so I threw my bike over my shoulder and we began hiking and shooting our way to the top of the ridge line, stumbling across some great features along the way. Upon topping out on the ridge, we were greeted with an amazing back drop, maybe the grass is greener on the other side?
The descent from the top was awesome, there’s something to be said for freeriding on a bike— riding on rocks that don’t look ride able, skidding through scree slopes and rolling over beautiful alpine meadows. Bikes can go almost anywhere these days.
On rest days Eric and I would make the journey to town and spend our day in the coffee shop editing, figuring out the flow of the footage and seeing if there were shots missing that we wanted to include.
I’ve been creating edits since I was a kid, and as I’ve grown I’ve felt the need to change the flow of my projects. To move away from the classic (edit) concept and head towards what I like to think of as a video.
An edit is footage put to music with no story line, just a compilation or mashup, so to speak. A video can have a broader audience, because every shot connects to the last, inspiring thoughts in the viewers mind and can potentially bring new meaning to ones life. A video takes you from beginning to end, across space and time.
Video: Eric Gonzalez
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MENTIONS: @SCOTT-Sports
Bit hypocritical?
I'd never ridden Keystone before that and he was very quick to say don't be a hero, push when you need to push and enjoy which it turned out was great advice. We hit the trail ahead of him and about 5K in he caught me just before a really tech avalanche debris field, he hopped off his bike and said just push through it to be safe (BTW, could have ridden it but was sketchy) which I did and he did chatting me up the whole way...he stayed with me for a kilo or so and then caught up with the photog, they took a different fork in the trail and we went on to the lake.
We've been waiting for the release of this since...
Riding down virgin alpine is stupid & irresponsible. I've been to Keystone many times over the last 20yrs, very sorry to see you have NO regard for it's beauty.
Shame.