Professional skier Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and several teammates braved the treacherous conditions of Alaska's Mount Denali last winter to test the limits of high altitude skiing and mountaineering. The new short film, The Denali Experiment, chronicles the trip. "Trying to ski at such high elevations on a mountain of that scale was very challenging," said Cattabriga-Alosa, who skis for The North Face team and is based in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Denali has a summit elevation of 20,320 feet. "I wasn't used to the altitude; I wasn't very familiar with the gear. In a way I felt like a total beginner at a sport that I had been doing all my life."
The Denali Experiment is one of three notable films about skiing or snowboarding and mountaineering that are creating buzz this winter. Another Jackson Hole athlete, pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones, is involved in a two-year project dubbed Further, a follow-up to Deeper, the film released in 2010. In the new project, Jones journeys to Alaskan wilderness accessible only by foot. French snowboarder Xavier De Le Rue is tackling the Alps in This is my Winter. In the film's opening minutes, Le Rue is captured on a descent of a 60-degree slope after a mini avalanche leaves him on sheer ice. "I like mountaineering and I like the fact that it helps me a lot to move around in the mountains, but I am a snowboarder," Le Rue said. "So I'll stick to what I do and what I like…ride fast, hit some air, get some nice lines. But if that requires mountaineering, I'll be up for it."