Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie Review

Excuse me, would you mind pointing me toward the Bunny Slope?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 14, 2011

Aspen is one of the boutique cities of the United States, a refuge for the celebrity class and a go to vacation spot for people both wealthy and, well, not so wealthy. But it evidently wasn’t always so. Not more than a couple of generations ago, before development brought a glut of ski resorts and other vacation amenities to the mountain enclave, it was a hardscrabble town with a miniscule population and not very many opportunities for its residents. Among those residents were the Marolt family, a group of hearty pioneers who, like a lot of people raised in small towns, dreamed of getting out of their backwater (and/or snow encased) burg. And the way out for the Marolts seemed, naturally, to be skiing. The Marolts are a major focus of the 2009 documentary Skiing Everest which in fact turns to out be less about the effort to climb and then ski down the world’s tallest mountain than it does about a group of childhood buddies whose (some would say) mad pursuit of high altitude skiing defined their formative years and led to a number of improbable adventures. While the Marolt brothers who are profiled in Skiing Everest perhaps lament the fact that their family slowly sold off their land holdings in and around Aspen through the course of several decades, they admit that allowed their family to stay put in the region, which in turn fostered the entire family’s love of skiing. Their father Max Marolt was a member of the U.S. Ski Team for several years from the mid-1950’s on, and was a member of the U.S. Olympic team. Max’s brother Bill (the Marolt boys’ uncle) was another legendary skier, who himself was an Olympic athlete a few years after his brother. The Marolts pioneered extreme skiing and seem to have passed that quest for danger on to their progeny.

Skiing Everest is a fascinating glimpse into a family history that may be legend in Colorado and in certain skiing circles, but which is probably little known outside of those circles. It is therefore perhaps a misleading documentary, in that some people may come to it expecting an IMAX-esque set of images taken from insanely high altitudes, with point of view shots of skis flying down intense mountain vistas. Instead this is a fairly talky affair. There are certainly a lot of shots of high altitude skiing, both the titular Everest quest, as well as several previous high altitude adventures in places as disparate as South America and Alaska, but this really is a more personal story than one might initially think going into it. This is certainly miles away from those old Warren Miller ski spectaculars.

Both Mike and Steve Marolt, as well as their childhood friends Jim Gile and Olympian John Callahan (not the deceased paraplegic cartoonist) forged a childhood bond early in life where skiing was virtually their sole raison d’être. In fact in Skiing Everest they try to remember a weekend or holiday when they weren’t on the slopes. As they got older and were able to drive, they renovated some old World War II era Willys Jeeps in order to access higher altitudes, and thus their love of high altitude skiing really took off.

Their attempts to scale Everest took several years to come to fruition, and that long slog is discussed in some detail, along with archival footage. They learned a lot along the way, and sometimes their conclusions are just slightly funny, as in their decision to start carpeting and heating their base camp tents after having weathered a few too many freezing and windy nights on the side of a mountain. But there are a lot of logistical elements that play into something like high altitude skiing, and Skiing Everest goes into some detail about everything from oxygen supplies to the rigors of climbing with a host of ski-related equipment attached to your back that makes the documentary often strangely fascinating.

Those of you who keep track of documentary Oscars may recall their was a celebrated feature in the mid-1970’s which took home an Academy Award entitled The Man Who Skied Down Everest, and in fact short snippets of that film are included as a sort of prelude to Skiing Everest. Several people died during the ascent that produced the 1975 documentary. Luckily no one met their fate in Skiing Everest, at least in terms of perishing. What becomes clear, however, as the Marolts talk about their history and this epic journey—which, while not completely successful allowed them to claim several world records—they indeed did “meet their fate” in a perhaps more figurative way. The Marolts seem peculiarly fated to high altitude skiing as perhaps no other American family has been.

Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Skiing Everest slaloms onto Blu-ray with a fairly average looking MPEG-2 encoded image in 1080i and 1.78:1 (for the most part). This documentary was obviously filmed under very stressful and challenging conditions a lot of the time, and so a certain amount of slack has to be allowed for less than glorious imagery. Taken objectively as a hi-def experience, Skiing Everest may be just a tad too soft to really blow the minds of some viewers. Taken within the context of how this imagery had to actually be shot, a lot of Skiing Everest is indeed pretty mind blowing. While sharpness may indeed be an issue, colors and contrast are outstanding, with the omnipresent whites never blooming, and some exceptional detail along the way. The interview segments feature abundant fine detail and even some of the live, on location shots reveal a wealth of detail, from beard stubble to wisps of clouds encircling mountain peaks. There is quite a bit of archival material here, some of it framed in 1.33:1, but generally, aside from an overall softness, this is a very nice if not spectacular looking feature.

Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

No lossless audio here, but it's probably not going to be an issue for most people. In fact, even the surround Dolby Digital 5.1 mix seems a bit pointless a lot of the time, as about the only surround activity is the omnipresent rumble of high altitude winds. Otherwise you get an occasional panning sound of skis moving through the soundfield, but that's about it. This is really pretty much a talking heads documentary, with admittedly gorgeous interstitials of various on site location footage, but as such there simply isn't a wealth of opportunity for surround activity. The interview segments all sound crisp and clear, and perhaps more surprisingly, so do the on site monologues and interviews. There's nothing amazing about either the 5.1 or 2.0 sound mixes, but they are completely competent and get the job done quite nicely.

Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on the disc. The combo pack does come with a standard def DVD version of the documentary.

Skiing Everest Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I grew up in the mountains outside of Salt Lake City, so I know the allure of living at relatively high altitudes and being able to strap on skis and glide down a hill from virtually your own front door. (It's Kauffman family lore that my father was offered virtually all of Park City to buy when it was pretty much an abandoned ghost town. My mother talked him out of it, much to her lasting chagrin). I certainly don't have the Marolts' dare devil proclivities, but I think I share their love of the freedom that skiing seems to engender, and that comes through quite brilliantly in this surprisingly thoughtful piece of filmmaking. Skiing Everest is perhaps mistitled, and might be more properly thought of as a personal portrait of the Marolts and their longtime skiing friends, but it's a really interesting piece and is Recommended.