A Tiny Day in the Jackson Hole Backcountry – by Tristan Greszko.

I had posted this in my Google Reader feed last week, but I feel it’s deserving of a post.  Skiing is a hobby of mine.  Though I love living in DC, it doesn’t offer the same kinds of winter recreation opportunities, nor do the adjacent parks and wilderness areas have the same scale and feeling as the American West.

I ran across this ski video initially expecting more of the same from the ski movie genre – movies that exist to show the skills of the athletes and how they push the envelope of what’s skiable. This is something different – a short film that truly encapsulates the experience of spending a day in the Jackson Hole backcountry.  More than anything else, the use of tilt-shift photography and miniature faking gives the mountain a sense of scale that no film I’ve seen has successfully recreated.  The sense of being alone along a ridge, a small person amidst a huge landscape is one of my favorite feelings about skiing.  The fact that this film is set in Jackson – my favorite place to ski by far, a place I’ve visited many times over the years – only makes it that much more enjoyable.

As the artist’s (Tristan Greszko) instructions read, let the movie load in HD, put it on full screen and sit back for the ride.  It’s almost like you were there for the tram ride to the summit.  As it is, I’m just glad I was able to make a trip to Wyoming earlier this season to take part in the record 557 inches of snow.