Higher Ground

Last night my better half and I took part in one of those annual rituals that herald the coming of a new season: We went to see Warren Miller's latest annual film (he's put one out every year for 56 years now, if anyone's counting), this one called Higher Ground. The shot on the left is from the film, featuring snowboarder Chelone Miller (younger brother of skiing legend "Bullet" Bode Miller; obviously the younger brother is more evolved, having progressed to snowboarding) and was taken in Courchevel, France. The picture below is Tahoe's own Brent Abrams, taken at Heavenly.

There are no complaints about the movie itself that I can offer. Warren Miller movies follow a very basic formula: Gather together a few of the world's greatest skiers and snowboarders in some of the world's greatest locations for winter mountain sports, film the whole thing and paste together the highlights, then back it all up with some high-octane music. I don't know if the result could exactly be called "art", but it is both beautiful and God does it make you want to go riding after a long summer.

No, no complaints about the movie, which was pretty much everything you expect from Warren Miller. My complaints are reserved exclusively for the organizers of the event.

The showing was held in the brand-spanking-new Reno Events Center, which I had never been inside before last night. It's a nice, good looking building that will supposedly seat bout 7,000 people (I don't know if this includes floor seating or not). It seemed like it would be a great facility for a concert, a large trade show or maybe, I don't know, pro wrestling. Unfortunately it turned out to be a miserable place to watch a movie. First off, the price for the event was about double what it was last year, but this was justified by the fact that this screening was also a fundraiser for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Although we were told that doors opened at 6 p.m., we were not told until we were inside the building that the movie was not scheduled to begin until 8 p.m. I'll grant them that if we'd checked the website we'd have found that out, but no indication of the schedule was given either on the ticket or outside the building. Once we were inside, we were told in no uncertain terms that if we left we would not be allowed back in, so we had a choice of killing two hours by either sitting on uncomfortable seats in the screening area or listening to sales pitches from ski industry sales reps at booths set up inside another part of the Center.

As if that weren't bad enough, the movie itself didn't actually start until 8:30 because several of the local Tahoe-area residents featured in the film were introduced and interviewed on stage. I admire the skill and bravery of these men and women as athletes, but honestly they didn't seem to have much to say outside of "Being in a Warren Miller movie is totally awesome" and "I love skiing Lake Tahoe." Yet somehow this took half an hour.

Then when the movie actually started the sound was so badly adjusted that none of the dialogue or voice-overs could be heard. And maybe the organizers felt that it would help people get into the spirit of the event, but I really don't understand the need for the theater to be air conditioned down to about 35 degrees Fahrenheit--great skiing temperatures, but not so much fun for watching a movie with your non-skiing girlfriend who's somewhat cold-sensitive. The movie's main screen was surprisingly small, nowhere near the size of a standard movie screen, which greatly subtracted from the experience. After the film had been going for about 45 minutes we got an intermission (Warren Miller movies always have intermissions), but the intermission itself was about 45 agonizing minutes long. Conditions were so bad, and the whole event so haphazardly put together that a significant chunk of the audience left at intermission. When the film ended, those who were still there practically sprinted for the exits despite the fact that ski and snowboard clips were playing over the credits. All in all, it was a virtual clinic on how to make seeing a movie as unenjoyable as possible.

But despite the best attempts of the organizers to sabotage the event, seeing the movie did accomplish it's goal: Getting me and a whole lot of other people excited about the upcoming season, which coincidentally will be the first one of my life in which I will own both own all my own equipment and possess a season pass. The current lack of snow in the Sierra is the source of a great deal of frustration to me (see our poll question on the left), but no matter. In the end, nothing can keep snow from coming to the Sierra--at least, not yet--just like in the end nothing can ruin a Warren Miller movie.