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Home » AFF Press Release » Alpinist Adds “Playing with Style” Symposium to Barry Corbet Film Festival

Alpinist Adds “Playing with Style” Symposium to Barry Corbet Film Festival

JACKSON, Wyo – Alpinist Magazine-a quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing-has expanded the Second Annual Barry Corbet Film Festival (BCFF) to include a symposium entitled “Playing with Style”. The symposium, held on Saturday, January 21, at 5 p.m. at Vertical in Teton Village, will feature a panel of outdoor icons exploring the changing landscape and impacts of the adventure lifestyle. The symposium will be moderated by Charlie Craighead; panel members include outdoor legend Yvon Chouinard, renowned author Ted Kerasote, professional skiers Charlotte Moats and Doug Coombs, world-class climber Nancy Feagin and big-wave surf pioneer Mickey Munoz. A $5 suggested donation at the door will go directly to this year’s BCFF proceeds recipient, the Central Asia Institute.

Panel members range from their sixties (Yvon Chouinard) to their early twenties (Charlotte Moats) and their experiences comprise the cutting edge of climbing, skiing, surfing, hunting, fishing and environmentalism. The gathering of such diverse opinion leaders will create a dynamic examination of the obligations and impacts of our adventures, says Alpinist editor Christian Beckwith. “How have our lifestyles changed since Yvon first drove down to Patagonia with four friends in 1968 to climb Fitz Roy? Does Charlotte’s approach to her adventures in 2005 have anything in common with the way Gerry pioneered big-wave surfing a generation ago? This discussion is an opportunity to explore how we play in the wilds today, and whether we have any responsibility to future generations,” Beckwith said.

The Second Annual Barry Corbet Film Festival will take place January 19-21, 2006 at the Walk Festival Hall in Teton Village, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Three nights of film-one each for skiing, surfing and climbing-will be presented by the legends of their particular disciplines. The BCFF will be formally opened on Thursday, January 19, with an address by Jackson Mayor, Mark Barron.

The Barry Corbet Film Festivel is a unique mountain gathering that honors Jackson Hole mountaineering legend Barry Corbet’s athletic and artistic spirit with a series of films that evoke the joys of deep snow, wild water and steep stone.

Big-mountain skiing legend Doug Coombs will MC the opening night and present the world premier of The Otterbody Experience, the story of a ski descent he pioneered on the Grand Teton. On Friday, January 20, surfing superstar Mickey Munoz will present his favorite surf films, including the new film, All Aboard the Crazy Train, which features big-wave surf phenomenon Laird Hamilton. Patagonia founder and outdoor icon Yvon Chouinard will wrap up the festival Saturday night with a presentation of the seminal film, Mountain of Storms, which chronicles the 1968 journey from Ventura, California to El Chalten, Argentina, that resulted in a new route on Patagonia’s Fitz Roy, the naming of Chouinard’s company, Patagonia, and the birth of the adventure lifestyle. Each night of the festival will feature more than two hours of films by the best adventure filmmakers in the world.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to the Central Asia Institute (www.ikat.org) in support of their Education Disaster Fund (EDF) for “on the ground” relief efforts following Pakistan’s catastrophic earthquake. Advanced tickets and a complete listing of films can be found at www.alpinist.com.

Doors open each night at 7:00 p.m. for pre-film cocktails. Films begin at 8. Afterhours parties on Friday and Saturday nights at Vertical are included with tickets. Tickets ($12 each night) are available at Teton Mountaineering, Skinny Skis, Tobacco Row, Summit Surf, Wilson Backcountry Sports and the Village Cafe, or by calling Alpinist at 307-734-0600.

Barry Corbet was a Jackson Hole legend who ticked the first ski descent of Buck Mountain and named the infamous ski run Corbet’s Couloir at the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. A former Snow King ski instructor, Exum Mountain Guide, and founder of the Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, he was also an American climbing legend who helped put the first American team on Everest. “An athlete beyond compare,” as one of his fellow guides called him, Corbet combined the pursuits of exploration and exhilaration in an exemplary fashion.

In 1968 while making a ski film, Corbet was gravely injured in a helicopter crash. After the accident, which left him partially paralyzed, he made several films about living with disabilities, wrote a book, Options: Spinal Cord Injury and the Future (now in its tenth printing) and founded New Mobility, the leading magazine for the disabled. As one of his colleagues from that magazine said, “Because of his spinal cord injury, Barry kind of had two lives. And he lived more fully in both of them than most of us do in one.”

The Barry Corbet Film Festival is supported by Patagonia, Exum Mountain Guides, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and a number of Valley businesses and inviduals. It is powered by Base Camp Communications.

About Alpinist Magazine: Hailed by Italian climbing legend Reinhold Messner as “The best climbing magazine in the world today,” Alpinist Magazine is an archival-quality, quarterly publication dedicated to world alpinism and adventure climbing. The pages of Alpinist capture the art of ascent in its most powerful manifestations, presenting an articulation of climbing and its lifestyle that matches the intensity of the pursuit itself. Alpinist has been awarded two Maggie Awards, for Best Quarterly/Consumer Division and Best Overall Design, and was featured in a seven-page article in Outside Magazine (“The Purists”) in March 2005. The magazine’s editorial and publishing offices are based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and online at www.alpinist.com