Archives West Finding Aid

Opens with a shot of mountains covered in snow that pans left to right. Some trees in the foreground, the mountains are a little ways away. Eventually there is a man whose head you can see that looks to be lying in the snow. Shot goes to a man dancing in the snow mixed with clips of skiing and music begins to play. Many clips show him jumping as well as skiing down the hill. After a few minutes of these clips, it once again shows his head lying on the ground. It then goes back to skiing clips but these are more frantic as is the music. The final clip shows him falling hard after going off a jump. The film gives the impression that it depicts a dream, although it does not say so.

John Thompson agrees to take mail from California to the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to mining communities during the Gold Rush of the 1850s. His skis allowed him to make the trip in only five days. Others also embraced the idea of skiing as a mode of transportation, and as its popularity grew, he established a race to allow for competition. The movie then transitions into more modern skiing, mostly focused on freestyle skiing. In the 1970s, Eddie Ferguson is noted as one of the world's best freestyle skiers, as is John Clendenin. The film talks about their lifestyles but notes that they work extremely hard. The freestyle contest breaks down into Ballet, Moguls, and Aerials. There are many clips of each of these, showing what they involve. The ballet portion resembles figure skating done on skis. The film talks to many competitors about the aerial portion of the competition, showing their emotions just before they go. It then transitions to film of the jumps set to music. Many are landed but there are some falls as well. It describes the scoring and goals for moguls, and shows many of the competitors talking about strategy and their thinking about moguls. Once again, it transitions into the skiers actually skiing through the moguls set to music. Skiers then fly to Park City to compete in an event that at the time had the largest cash prize ever. Footage of the event starts with the Ballet portion, set to music. Many of the competitors had celebrated the night before the mogul event and some were seemingly still feeling the effects. There is a lot of footage of the skiers going through the moguls, again set to music. Salerno won this event once again. In Sun Valley, Salerno won again, his third win in a row. After this they went to Jackson Hole, although the event was tarnished by a storm that made conditions terrible. The film gets into the culture of the skiers and their use of drugs, mostly filming them while intoxicated. Some of this seemed to be because they were unhappy with the weather at Jackson Hole and couldn't take it seriously. After Jackson Hole, they go to Snowbird. At Snowbird a helicopter flies them to areas that are hard to access and they ski in much deeper powder with Steve Lazier who lives under the tram building. There are film clips of the skiers going through very deep powder on steep hillsides set to music. The final competition, at Heavenly Valley, would decide who would be the freestyle skier of the year. There is a long set of film involving the Aerial portion of the event set to music. After this portion, Salerno is leading with Clendenin in fourth. The film then moves on to the Ballet portion with film clips set to music. Clendenin and Salerno are once again very close heading into the mogul event, and although Clendenin won the event, Salerno won freestyle Skier of the year.