Jeff Lowe’s High Adventure Mountain Film Festival

The inaugaral High Adventure Mountain Film Festival kicked off in downtown Ogden, Utah yesterday.  The film festival will last four days and represent 32 separate films vying for 4 Lowe-Max awards.  The High Adventure Mountain Film Festival has received entrants from 32 different countries and was developed by climbing legend Jeff Lowe.

For those of you that have never heard of Jeff Lowe, in his prime he was one of the top climbers in the world.  He is credited with nearly 1,000 first ascents taking place all over the world.  Eight years ago he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that works on the nervous system.  His climbing career was over.

Jeff Lowe was recently profiled in a nice piece in Outside magazine.  In that article, Jeff explained what it was like climbing for all those years, then having to deal with a disease that took away his way of life.  It was an emotional portrait of a man that some have come to know as a survivor.  His life is a struggle, but his ambitions have never been questioned.  After losing one way of life, Jeff, continues to chase adventure in other formats.  His latest venture, the High Adventure Mountain Film Festival, brings Jeff back to his passion in a slightly different format.

I think some of these films may trigger a reconnection in more mature audience members to a part of their life that may be forgotten or compartmentalized as part of the past,” said Lowe. “They may be inspired, in a way. I’m not saying they will go off and run some class-6 river in Africa. I think that reconnecting to this spirit of adventure is what we are trying to showcase here.

This quote is coming from a recent article in the Ogden Standard-Examiner.

Jeff Lowe’s story is one of inspiration.  In the 1960’s and 70’s, Lowe quickly made a name for himself in big-wall climbing.  He specialized in light and fast climbing, becoming known as a master of the free-solo technique..no ropes, no harnesses, just one man and his body taking on some of the world’s toughest walls.  After his dreaded diagnosis eight years ago, Jeff would be put in the position to reevaluate his life and what he was striving to achieve.  Never one for laying down, Jeff decided to stay positive and focus his energies in new directions.  These directions have led Jeff to try to inspire people to get out and live life to the fullest.  He understands that, now, he may not be the feature of the film, but films do inspire.

The idea behind the High Adventure Mountain Film Festival came about one year ago.  Jeff wanted to bring adventure to a new audience, bring those who do these adventures together, and offer up a place to conduct formal discussions on the adventure life and get people involved.  He thought that there was no better place to put this all together than in Ogden, Utah, an area near the mountains that Jeff first fell in love with.

If you are in the area of Ogden, Utah this weekend, it might be a good time to get out there and show some support to Jeff and the other adventurers and film makers who continuously try to inspire us through their images and visions of what he outdoors mean.

To read a complete rundown of the High Adventure Mountain Film Festival activities, click on over to the Ogden Standard-Examiner.  To read the fantastic article about Jeff Lowe in Outside magazine, click the link to “Lastnight I Dreamed I Had Legs,”  which was featured in Outside’s August 2008 edition.

Sources:  Ogden Standard-Examiner, Outside Magazine.  Photo: Outside Magazine ©Brice Duffy