Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

BY R. SCOTT RAPPOLD
THE GAZETTE

How does your ski season begin? 

Maybe with grueling weeks in the gym, prepping muscles for the exertions of winter? Or maybe with an uncomfortable night in the back seat of your car in a ski resort parking lot, only to wake on a cold morning with a dead battery?

That’s the intro of “…Like There’s No Tomorrow,” the 62nd annual installment to bear the name of ski-film pioneer Warren Miller. The film plays at the Pikes Peak Center Friday and Saturday.

Needless to say, in classic Warren Miller fashion, the film only goes up from there, on a high-flying tour of big-mountain skiing across the globe. 

In the most famous feud in the skiing universe (now that skiers and snowboarders can all just get along), Miller himself is no longer involved in the films, having sold the company and then split with Boulder-base Warren Miller Entertainment over creative differences. 

But the films have carried on the get-stoked-for-ski-season, you-can-do-this-too vibe, and “…Like There’s No Tomorrow” is no exception. The first segment launches you into the untracked high mountains of Indian Kashmere, a region contested with Pakistan where ski areas are patrolled by armed soldiers.

From there it’s to longtime Warren Miller mainstay Squaw Valley at Tahoe, which last year’s La Nina winter blessed with 800 inches of snow. Filmmakers went to Norway, Chile, British Columbia, New Zealand, Utah and Alaska.

The most dramatic skiing – at least the most grueling – occurs at Tuckerman Ravine in New Hampshire, on the flank of Mount Washington (where the highest wind gust ever recorded on Earth, 231 mph, was once measured.) Here Aspen skier Chris Davenport and British Columbian Hugo Harrison scale this rugged terrain and ride down on brutally rock-hard snow that defines East Coast skiing.

“If you can ski this, you can ski anywhere,” declares Davenport. 

No Colorado resort has a segment in this year’s film, though a number of athletes make appearances, including Colby West and Bobby Brown of Breckenridge; Matt Walker, Jake Zamansky and Ted Davenport of Aspen; and Cam Riley of Boulder. 

Longtime Miller fans may still miss his narration, and this year’s film continues the post-Miller trend of vacillating toward slapstick. A skier drops from a helicopter in full gear into a swimming pool to impress a girl. A costumed yeti pursues another skier over the Monashee Mountains in British Columbia. 

“Yeti just snaked my line.” Really?

Fortunately, the “comedy” is brief and most of the film sticks to the tried-and-true formula of showing amazing athletes tearing up some of the toughest terrain on Earth. Most of us will never get dropped of by a helicopter at 15,000 feet to ski down a cliff, but it’s good to know some skiers can. 

It’s all enough to send anyone to the ski shop to get their gear waxed and tuned.

The film ends on a somber with a tribute to Kip Garre, a Warren Miller Entertainment athlete who died in an avalanche in the Sierras in May. The message: He lived and skied like there was no tomorrow, so you can too. 

"… Like There's No Tomorrow," shows at the Pikes Peak Center on Friday, Nov. 4 at 8 p.m. and 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 5. Tickets are $21, which includes a free lift ticket at several Colorado resorts and gear discounts.

Jackson Hole’s Lynsey Dyer, who skis in India in the opening segment, will be on-hand to answer questions and sign autographs.  

Visit www.warrenmiller.com for more details.