ALL I CAN
Prologue
AWAKENING
ALL
I
Chapter One
COMMUNITY
FRESHFIELDS
CANADIAN ROCKIES
Team work is everything on a trip like this, you know. It's difficult thing to come out here, to get out in these big glaciers.
There's a lot of long lines where we would hike up as a pair. Just watch over each other and help each other climb and ski.
To be able to work to get to the top of something with a good friend and share up moments, skiing the line
with them, after them, before them, get to the bottom... Just share up and enjoying it is incredible.
Boys, first day ever!
You should hurry up with those stands and help me with this wall.
If we were getting longer out here we wouldn't be getting anything done.
This time you are alive!
Yeah, well ideally hopefully the downclimb off the ridge is super straightforward. You saw what we went through today.
- Everything is reasonable.
- Are you just going to take this ridge all the way over?
Yeah, like you can go around this peak and then the next peak, you can sneak the back and you get on to the ridge, it looks nice, and then you can't see the other sides.
So we don't know if we can ski down that face and then climb up or make that ridge walk.
We have to leave like, almost at like midnight or one o'clock in the morning pretty much.
The biggest unknown factor is just getting over there.
TANTALUS RANGE. BC
Chapter Two
IMMERSION
As you've gathered the weather briefing is taking place. The total weather consideration and the case all of the weather favorable...
Weather can make or brake a test shot. That's why you want to know up to the last moment just how you stand with the elements.
So many different kinds of snow. It's one of the most beautiful thing on Earth.
Different every day you go up and your line is changing, snow is changing. It's a new sensation every day.
The clouds are still light. Seventy thousand feet now...
You have a grandstand seat here to one of the most momentous events in the history of science.
For the sake of all of us, and for the sake of our country, I hope that you'll join me in wishing this expedition well.
Storm skiing probably my favourite kind of skiing. Just being in the woods when it's snowing is a calming feeling, I think.
Being surrounded by 100% nature and the total quietness.
Just a different feeling, you don't really get that in too many places and we are lucky to live here.
Get out of there, guy! Get out of there!
Fracture, fracture.
This is Seb, I want you to go ahead and stay there and we are gonna continue the drop.
Chapter Three
PERSEVERANCE
ALASKA
I definitely think that nature offers the ultimate testing ground for man to challenge himself.
So many options and so many variables have free skiers looking up at a line.
And it's guaranteed that each would have their own way of reading the terrain. And it's guaranteed they would each ski differently.
Tough to really say - you are being a really environmentally conscious person if you are a skier, you know?
Last year, living in the mountains in a cabin and getting up there by your own means of ski touring or hiking.
The fact that we can get anywhere out of these valleys is only because logging and mining is there.
It's basically created access for us to get up there. But without those roads we wanna be there.
Love doing that. This is my whole life, exactly what I want to do. And I got so much enjoyment out of it.
There's no way you can really say you feel bad for doing what we doing.
At the same time it would be great if we were not wrecking as much by getting this amount of enjoyment out of nature.
Chapter Four
CONNECTION
Vulcan Puyehue
CHILE
We came up this far-fetched plan to go down to Chile and ski the inside this crater. But really none of us had any idea if it was even possible.
He was mention volcano opening in 1960 and he has to evacuate his family. All this forest that we are now is just re-growing.
None of us, really, are any good at horse-back riding whatsoever.
Riding up the horse in your ski gear, knowing you're going to go skiing, is just a craziest thing you never imagined.
Day three at base-camp,one of our guys Niko woke us up at 5 in the morning. He told us it's gonna be bluebird.
We got to the top and we weren't on just any volcano. It was a volcano with these Alaska style spines.
And to see that, where we were going go ski, was like a dream come true.
We all ski down to the same spot, just give each other the high five, and throw our skins back on and go for another one.
Though, a year after we are at the volcano, it fully erupted. It's pretty crazy!
I don't really know what it means in the grand scheme of things, but that place where we were is now gone.
When I found out I was coming to Greenland, I didn't really think of what the culture is could be like and that's kind of one of the biggest shocks.
I think there's something bigger about coming to place like this. Seen how other people live.
That helps you appreciate those things in your own life and also helps you, you know, realign.
GREENLAND
The people who live here year round they pretty much are born here and die here.
What leads you to this moment? I wonder about that all the time. This is me, this is what i'm doing and this is where I am, and...
All the little strange things that went into making it happen.
It's kind a hard really to put into words how remote we are, but we are just basically taking care of ourselves.
It was definitely fun to be out there. Camping at night and hiking all the lines that we ski.
You wake up, the sun was shining, you look out your tent door and just big peaks, ski-able lines everywhere.
We all hiked up this big face, and it was kind of a struggle. And I wasn't sure, I kind of wanted to ski the face that we had climbed.
And I also wanted to ski the couloir that Callum was gonna drop.
Then I ended up skiing the face, looking up and it's just look so gnarly what Callum was dropping into.
MOROCCO
We had a couple goals on this trip. The first one was to get to the top of mount M'Goun, which is the second highest peak in Morocco.
Looking out of the barren desert it's pretty hard not to wonder: is this a future?
The more you travel it's interesting to see how differently people live from you.
We were all connected in the same problem.
I'm privileged to have grown up in the mountains and skiing my whole life. I wanna see my kids still, you know, do ski. And their kids being able to ski...
It was all my son's fault, he was in grade 6 and he wanted to go ski. And I says: "Well, If you going skiing, I'm going skiing too.
'Cause I'm not driving you to the hell and coming back home again."
This would be my 8 year of what - a hundred plus days. If I get another 6 more in.
Who says you can't drive with ski boots on? All girl working really hard, got a big load.
I'm Mary Woodward and I'm 75 years old. I got free a pass this year. I've been skiing since I was 23.
... such a free feeling. You forget how old you are. Feels like you can do anything.
We have the nicest snow in the countryside. We used to get a lot more but can't help that. We just come out and ski what's here every day.
Then over here we got Dennis.
They call me the tail gunner because I'm the last guy who comes down. If anybody gets hurt I am the one who comes to save you.
So in that way I can go the slowest, which is nice. I don't like to speed like they do.
Bob probably knows every tree out here by name.
- I broke a ski here couple years ago.
A guy in my ear talking right now, sorry.
- Ski good or eat wood.
But you can't hear anybody.
Make sure that earpiece is on. And I like to hear people.
Oh, Mary is the only other person that shows up just about every day, all the others have got: "Bad legs, bad knees."
Well winter has changed over the years. But I guess we still be skiing a long time - it's just that we are used to skiing in knee-deep powder.
- What's happening to all the snow, chef?
- Ah... It's turning brown and moldy.
- You can't eat yellow snow.
- I know, because it's dog poo or cat pee.
- Only the freshing fresh.
- Well I eat from the ground also.
- You're just a little doggy.
- Ah... I ski with my brother and I like it when he farts.
I guess the soul of winter is in the Kootenays for a lot of people. They come here for that reason. I think you can find the soul in other places too.
Yeah, my parents definitely gave me the biggest gift I could ever get. Which is love for the mountains. Super important to be able to pass that on.
Those skis are worth more than a truck!
You have a constituency that's out on a hill and everyone of them by virtue of what they're doing is an environmentalist.
And you are converting people every day through the beauty and natural world and the opportunity for redemption in a sense of freedom on hill.
You could just do anything and go any place. And you do. you get to the bottom...
You just think: "Oh, ok. Let's do it again." It's that good.
CAN
Skier's connection with the nature and the mountains is incredible. And puts us at the forefront of what's going on with our environment.
Climate is too intangible. It's just being called the perfect problem. You can't see it, most people don't understand it.
And even though it's happening, it's too slow to be tangible to most people.
Every generation in history has had their own big challenge to deal with, and this one is ours.
It's money. You have corporations funding political campaigns, and
working on a quarterly profit calendars. And it's impossible to take you eye of that.
A lot of comments I get revolve around people feeling badly. They feel bad about the car they drive, about the life they live.
And I think that this isn't about you, it's about how we all become part of a bigger solution. And we're all hypocrites, of course.
It's a fossil-fuel based society, but we have to all work together toward a common goal.
Skiers always scout difficult runs, think of climate changes as the same thing. While you are scouting it and think about it and planing action.
You get increasingly nervous or I do. And the second you drop in, you feel this incredible sense of relief.
Because you have an opportunity to succeed or fail on your own terms. Right now. And all the fearing, anxiety and planning is over.
The environmental crisis it's a huge puzzle. I think it's just a matter of finding your own role as a person. And finding our role as a society.
The common person, those are the people not the heroes. Who solved all the globe problems for thousands of years. And will continue too.
It's all about all the little different things that each of us can be doing.
Chapter Five
IMAGINATION
Dave here is being the most influential freestyle skier in last 10 years by far.
He has innovated some of the coolest tricks you see in the park and the back-country, even now.
He was on the Salomon team when they first start to making twin-tips.
- Tell me about the new ski, man.
- I don't know but your girlfriend just flashed us. Do it again.
All we did is made a couple of small changes to the technology already available.
Fastforward it ten years you see the trick that kids are doing today that are absolutely mind-blowing.
You can find parts of a system that need to be tweaked and that cause radical change.
And so if thinking about what's being happening before you or after you, you have to embrace the fact that it is actually happening right now.
Skiers' minds have been opened. The general skier now is not fearing change, they are expecting change,
and they are actually demanding change. They wanna see improvements so ... That's pretty cool.
It's about allowing yourself to see things from a different angle entirely.
For example, in my case, I can be like: "I'll never use helicopters, I'll never fly around the world any more."
Might as well not use skis anymore cause those are manufactured in factories and that's bad, and, just like, basically stop doing everything I am doing and like staying home and trying not to breathe too much.
Like if you try be less and be less, that's not progression, you know. You are not really moving forward, you basically just slowing down.
But I don't think it's about doing less. I think it's about doing more, it's about being more creative, it's about being more active.
We have to make a world where when you are flying an airplane it doesn't produce carbon emissions. When you ski it doesn't produce carbon emissions.
Here we are at the base of a Blackcomb right next to the Fitzsimmons micro hydro renewable energy powerplant.
It produces annually what we ?conceal annually as an entire ski operation?
Humans have this way of making the impossible possible. Just like Greg Hill, he skied to a 2 million feet in one year.
The most important thing to remember is that you have to engage in your world. The analogy is a ski slope in a back country.
You don't just ski the slope. You have to know precisely what's going on on that aspect in that part of the world. And that's how you have to engage society as well.
That might not be a lot of people who stop to think about it, but the time spent in the mountain is really taught us really valuable lessons.
It's almost that kind of asymmetric warfare. The ski industry small but it's interesting. And so it can drive change.
That parallels the environment perfectly, because there's no other choice. We are put into the environment, we have to perform.
We seek these moments, we look for the unknown. We look for just a little bit harder then before.
And that's why the people go, the only way to find out is to drop in and try.
Chapter Six
REALIZATION
You are a beautiful woman...
Teriyaki beef stick ... Native americans used to dine on a similar treat, they called it "meat pemmican".