Film fest celebrates winter on foot
By Maggie O’Neill, Reno Gazette Journal
They call themselves “human-powered.”
They are snowshoers, backcountry skiers and others who use their own power, i.e., their feet, to make their way through the winter outdoors.
No snowmobiles nor helicopters are used to access out-of-the-way places.
They believe that the most authentic way to experience the season is via their own locomotion and in the quiet and serenity of nature.
Gail Ferrell, president of the Snowlands Network, is an advocate of the human-powered experience, as is Elias Dechent, president of a Reno grassroots film organization called Artemisia.
Together, Ferrell and Dechent are promoting a backcountry film festival that encourages the human-powered experience in lieu of the motor-powered one. This Backcountry Film Festival is scheduled for Wednesday at the University of Nevada, Reno and will feature six films that focus on experiencing nature from a human-powered viewpoint.
“It’s like promoting art in the school,” Ferrell said. “You want to expose (people) to what is possible.”
The films, expected to take 90 minutes to show, will include the festival’s “Best of,” which is Teton Gravity Research’s “Deeper” and that features Jeremy Jones. Not sure who that is?
“He’s a famous snowboarder and he lives in Truckee,” said Dechent. “His big thing is that he’s changed his philosophy (on) snowboarding. His way is to not use helicopters or snowmobiles to get to hidden places. He just climbs or hikes there. And also because he is doing that, he takes way longer. So he has to stay there for weeks or months, but it also gives him the possibility of getting to places where no one else is.”
