by David Holbrooke, festival director
This past weekend I went to the desert to go mountain biking. I have spent a lot of time in the mountains around Telluride - but not much in the desert so the trip to Fruita - a couple of hours from Telluride - was a kick, particularly since we got to ride above the Colorado River.
I went with Telluride local and nationally know ski and adventure writer Rob Story which is always its own adventure. Rob and I continued our trademark routine of coming off the trail in the dark. My wife, Sarah, asked why I haven’t yet learned to bring a headlamp.
Our plan was to go into Fruita after riding and go to the Hot Tomato to see co-owner Anne Keller, whose compelling photography exhibit on World-Class Mountainbike racer Tara Llanes will be at MF this year. But of course, when we finally packed up, it was too late. Traveling with Rob is always … different; and he will share his unique perspective - tweaked and twisted, outraged and insightful often all at once - about his travels at MF this year. He will talk specifically about his interaction with the peculiar species, Outdoor Photographer . (I would link to his website here - but in his own inimitable Story way, he doesn’t have a website - yet). He is on a great program at the Opera House on Saturday (click to view schedule) with Anne and Tara, and a terrific short film called Malletheads about bike polo.
The worst part of the trip (other than falling on a cattle rail - which really hurt) was missing dinner at the Hot Tomato which gets rave reviews for its pizza. The best part was seeing the Colorado. Living in Brooklyn for a long time, it has been a while since I have laid eyes on that river. I am afraid to figure out when the last time was - I did go rafting down it when I was a kid but not sure since then.
The Colorado River will be well-featured and throughly discussed at MF this year. Wade Graham, our symposium host, said that the Colorado - and the Four Corners - SouthWest area is Ground Zero for water issues in this country. It remains an enormous - and essential resource for the area - but with all of the development, it is highly unlikely the river can continue to deliver everything expected of it.
You get an incredibly good sense of both the challenges facing the river - but also just how amazing it is in the new Grand Canyon IMAX film we are playing this year at MF, Grand Canyon - River at Risk. This film - which should be one of our highlights - was directed by Greg MacGillivary who was at MF last year with The Alps. When he asked me if we had any interest in showing it in 3D, we set out on quite a journey at MF. I should actually say our Festival Producer, Stash Wislocki, set out. Mercifully, I have been out of many of the conversations but Stash, our projector expert K2, and the extremely good people of MacGillivary-Freeman Films have worked tirelessly to make this come together.
The film features MF regular Wade Davis and Robert Kennedy Jr and their daughters as they go down the Grand Canyon. After the screening, Wade will speak about the river - and will join some other experts for a discussion. If you haven’t seen Wade Davis speak before, I very much recommend checking him out (he will also do q/a after the film, Schooling the World).
One of the true LIONS of the Grand Canyon is Martin Litton, our poster “boy” this year. For those of you who don’t know him, he rowed dories down the Colorado - through the infamous Lava Falls - into his early nineties. For those of you that do, you will learn something new about his remarkable life in the film, The Good Fight. Martin was all set to come but sadly is not feeling well and won’t be able to make it to MF this year but we hope to have him back next year.
