Reviews

Steep

Reckless and soulful

By GERALD PEARY | January 16, 2008

3.0 Stars

STEEP: No terrain is too forbidding for extreme skiers.

You don’t need a “pray for snow” button to be thrilled, and moved, by Mark Obenhaus’s documentary tribute to the reckless, soulful folks whose goal in life is to ski where no one has skied before, even if it kills them. “Extreme skiing” means finding the steepest, most impossible mountains in the world, from Iceland to Alaska to the French Alpine slopes. Half the marvel of the film is the breathtaking footage of skiers in wondrous terrains. The other pleasure is getting to know the extreme-skiing subculture: Glen Plake, a Mohawk-wearing former juvenile delinquent; Ingrid Backstrom, as preppy-photogenic as she is gutsy and madly aggressive on the slopes; Doug Coombs, Mr. Nice Guy from Bedford, Massachusetts, whose journey led him from New England to Alaska to a bad day on the slopes in France. “Mountains have the last say,” explains his stoic wife. “Sometimes they swallow you up.” 91 minutes | Kendall Square

Topics: Reviews , Sports, Winter Sports, Extreme Sports, More

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