Live it Up with Mountain Life: Recent Episodes
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Live It Up with Mountain Life is a collection of conversations about life in the wilderness with the people who do it best. Discussions about adventure, conservation, missions & mishaps, and all the great stories and inspiration nature provides, host Feet Banks wades into the wilds with some of the outdoor world's most intriguing characters. Sharpen your edges and grease up those chains, 'cause you don't wanna miss this one. (Warning: Podcast may contain occasional adult language, mature concepts, and other awesome shit.)
Ben Poechman is a snowboarder and an artist and a true-grit farm kid who finds a way to make things happen with the resources he's got. As summer winds down and we start looking at the pow days to come, Ben chimes in with his story, his ideas, and some good advice on what to do when all you have to ride is a crappy ditch in the middle of the country. Watch Ben in the North Face flick Halation if you wanna see him shred before listening to this pod, or look at his artwork on Soulboarder.ca
Warning: This pod has a few instances of profanity.
Spencer Seabrooke is an airtime master, a highliner, base jumper, a snowboarder, climber, mountaineer, jindle boarder and all-around adventure seeking kinda dude. And he knows a lot about airtime. In 2016 he was featured in the highlining documentary "Untethered" walking a then-world record highline in Squamish BC with no safety tether. He's also known as a co-founder of SlacklifeBC, Canada's best slack line community/shop, and has a bonkers-awesome instagram feed you definitely want to check out. Host: Feet Banks
Sonnie Trotter is a climber and an author. Raised in Ontario, he started climbing as a teenager and never looked back. Over the past 25+ years Sonnie has pioneered some of the hardest routes in Canada and been on big walls all over the world with other icons of the sport. He's climbed competitively, professionally, and has also spent months on the road travelling and climbing with his wife and kids. And throughout it all, he never lost that love and that drive that fueled him as a teenager. HIs new memoir is called Uplifted: Evolution of a Climbing Life, and it is on shelves now.
Stephan Kesting is on the show today. He’s an adventurer and an author (and a jui jitsu master and a firefighter) who recently paddled a canoe over 1600 km through some of the most bug infested terrain in Northern Canada...alone, on a single, transplanted kidney. And it took him 41 days, which is pretty wild considering a whole lot of the journey was paddling upstream. Stephan talks about the risks of complacency, the will to carry on, and what it's like to really stare down your own mortality. His new book about the journey (and more) is called Perseverance: Life and Death in the Subarctic and it's a doozy!! Learn more about Stephan on his martial arts website too. (Warning: this episode contains a few cuss words.)
Jody MacDonald has sailed around the world twice but says she got seasick almost every day for ten years. She’s also visited over 100 countries and creates incredible, award winning photographs everywhere she goes. To celebrate International Women's Day, host Feet Banks gets the honour of connecting with Jody as she motorcycles through the Himalaya to discuss ditching the office job, leaning into your passion, and the value of insignificance in the face of nature's most vast spaces. Find Jody's work on her Instagram @jodymacdonaldphoto and hit up her website for stunning prints of her work.
Darren Rayner grew up making fun little movies and shred edits with his buddies and, when he was still in college, co-founded Voleurz, a badass, grassroots Canadian clothing company that also made films and generally helped push mountain culture down a more creative path. As time went by, Darren pivoted a bit and founded Magnafire Media, a Vancouver-based creative studio and production facility that creates videos for brands that want to stand out and get noticed. NOTE: there are a couple of cuss words in this Pod, be warned. As well, a video of the conversation is available on the Mountain Life YouTube.
Happy Holidays! We’re re-gifting this episode. Well, not really. It’s a brand new episode but, for the first time ever, we are having a guest back on the pod for round two. Frank Wolf is on the show today. It’s the Re-Wolf. Writing his own epitaph on a freezing trip in the Arctic, Frank says, “Frank was a somewhat notable person who wrote some things and made a few strange and mediocre films about esoteric outdoor subjects.” Which is not wrong, but there's more to this adventurer than that. Host Feet Banks digs in to talk about the new book, not needing toilet paper, canoe-trip tricks, and more. www.fwolf.ca
Alenka Mali is a big mountain snowboarder, climber, BASE jumper, jindleboarder and general mountain sport badass. Last winter, she produced a film called "The Beginning", which examines her unique mountain-based upbringing in Slovenia and Argentina and her quest to do a snowboard BASE jump in the mountains near her home in Squamish, BC. Instagram: @alenkaamali website: alenkamali.com
On September 8, 2022 everything went sideways for Charlie Adams. He had a little side hustle working as a tree surgeon. He was working on a tree in Tiny Township. It was the last tree of the day. He was 35 feet up when disaster struck.
“The tree split and broke underneath me,” he recalls. “I rode it to the ground then another piece came down and hit me. So I broke my neck, which wasn’t too serious. I broke my back which was the big accident. I had 13 rib fractures, a fractured scapula and a collapsed lung.”
“My partner thought I was dead.”
Charlie was paralyzed from his belly button down. Two years on and Adams is trying to get his life back together. He's sitskiing, riding his Bowhead adaptive bicycle and waterskiing whenever possible. His perseverance is truly inspiring.
Most anyone who’s paid attention to any ski or bike mags over the past two decades should know who Blake is, He’s has more than 300 covers to his credit, a photo of the year award from Powder Magazine and there’s a pretty good chance many of your favourite outdoor images were crafted by his mind, eye, lens and work ethic. He's a genius, a father, a successful commercial photographer, but most of all he’s always thinking, and he values the art above almost anything else. Blakejorgenson.com
Host: Feet Banks
As one of the main characters in Red Bull's documentary The Engine Inside, Jay Bearhead has seen it all; residential schools, drug abuse, alcoholism, homelessness. But it's his rise from those lows that are inspirational. In part it was the bicycle that saved his life. And now he's giving back; he's teaching indigenous youth how to harness the power of two wheels (or two edges) to create a future that is entirely their own, while continuing to learn and teach the indigenous traditions and culture he grew up without. Host: Colin Field
For the 50th episode of Live it Up with Mountain Life, host Feet Banks connects with Sandy Ward (Kelkeláokik)—snowboarder, mountain biker, filmmaker, guide to be, and a trailblazer at helping indigenous youth enjoy and reconnect to the land and their culture through sport. With a big movie about to premiere at Crankworx Whistler's Dirt Diaries contest, Sandy discusses the hectic pace of being a quadruple threat talent, her award-winning film Slides on the Mountain, her work with the next generation, and how she's still learning to sometimes reign things in after a two-decade career in the mountains. Check Sandy's Instagram!
Host: Feet Banks
The briefest history of Great Lakes surfing according to Grumpy Bob. The Wyldewood Surf Club was formed in 1965 out of Port Colbourne, Ontario and from its very beginnings was an international club with both Canadian and American members. Wyldewood Surf Club member Bob Sobering (AKA Grumpy Bob) began surfing in 1970, then picked it up again in the 90s. He’s a divisive figure in the Great Lakes surf scene. And in 2017 when I interviewed him for the Mountain life Annual story the Fifth Coast, he was as opinionated as ever. Those opinions have got him in a lot of hot water (pun intended) over the years, but even his main nemesis agrees this interview is worth listening to.
“You should air it,” said a guy who repeatedly fought face to face with Grumpy Bob. “It’s history and it’s important.”
Host: Colin Field.
Mountain Gazette owner, publisher, and editor Mike Rogge is on the front lines of preserving print media and the value of an analogue experience. The Gazette is currently tallest poppy in what seems to be a fairly healthy ecostystem of magazines aimed at outdoor people who understand the power of a physical experience and who want something tangible out of life. He also really loves skiing. mountaingazette.com
Imagine losing everything in the wilds of the Northwest Territories. That's what happened to Chris Larkin. After surviving two winters alone in the wilderness, his canoe capsized on the infamous Mountain River. Larkin lost everything except his knife, a couple matches and the clothes on his back. There were over 200 kilometres between him and civilization. 200 kilometres of relentless, wild terrain. The mighty Mackenzie River lay between him and salvation too. For the next ten days he struggled towards salvation. He made it. But only just. And to this day, he remembers those ten days as the most meaningful days of his life.
Host: Colin Field.
They call Jazmine Lowther "the Gazelle." Not because she grazes on grasslands and can grow antlers out of her head, but because she's very fast and nimble. An all-round mountain athlete and member of the North Face team, Jazmine has recently been turning heads as an elite ultrarunner, competing amongst the world's best on 50km to 100 mile courses around the globe. She also writes about about endurance training, nutrition, women’s health, motivation, and more. jazminelowther.com
Host: Feet Banks
Feet connects with Stan Rey, a master of the goggle tan and one of the most personable professional freeskiers in the game. Always ready to joke around for videos and happy to share the stoke or his knowledge with anyone who needs it, Stan is a natural born backflipper who grew up mostly in Whistler and has raced gates, raced ski cross, and raced into the hearts of freeski fans around the world with his charm, skills, and his philosophy of putting fun first. PARENTAL ADVISORY: 3 naught words in this one.
Links discussed in this episode: WB Magnetic movie, the Enemy Lines race, and Stan's Youtube channel.
Today's guest is legendary skier Greg Hill. Back in 2010 he was all over ski media; he climbed and skied two million vertical feet, climbing 71 mountains in both North America and South America over 266 days of ski-touring. He was the first North American to climb and ski 40,000 vertical feet in 24 hours and he even set a world record of 50,000 in 24 hours. Simply put, the man is a machine.
Since those accomplishments he's dedicated much of his effort into being a better human being from a carbon footprint perspective. His film Electric Greg followed his attempt to ski 100 peaks without burning any fossil fuels.
Today Greg is mostly snowboarding (always up for new challenges) and is continuing to promote a more environmental approach in the mountains.
We talk about his beginnings in the ski world and where he's going in the future.
Host: Colin Field.
Mercedes Nicoll has competed in 4 winter Olympics for women’s halfpipe, and seven world championships. She’s been the Canadian National Champ five times, has 8 world cup podiums, and is a shining example of what it means to love to competition and camaraderie of sport. These days she’s a coach, a writer, a public speaker, an organizer of fun, and host of the podcast Dropping In with Mercedes Nicoll… ALSO... I once saw Shania Twain pause in between songs at stadium show in Vancouver and get the entire audience on their feet as she gave Mercedes a shout out. That kind of street cred is hard to beat. WARNING: A couple bad words in this one. Mercedesnicoll.com
Today’s guest is an absolute legend of the freeride mountain bike world; Geoff Gulevich. This guy rode in Rampage years ago and continues to stretch out his pro riding career into something nearly every human on earth could envy; he rides bikes for a living. I definitely want to be Geoff Gulevich when I grow up.
Earlier in 2023, Geoff busted his femur in 17 places, but he’s back on the bike and as stoked as ever to get after it.
Host: Colin Field
Katie Burrell is a comedian, writer, director, actress, and creator of numerous online videos and skits such as Influencer, Dream Job, Still Solo, Toxic Mountain Bike Girlfriend, and more. She's one of the most recognizable figures in the ski community and has broken new ground with using comedy to poke fun at, and invite people into, the sports we love. Katie’s first Feature Film, Weak Layers, opens in theatres across Canada tomorrow and she’s here talking about betting on herself and her ideas to make the leap from ski scene celebrity to the hallowed grounds of Hollywood and beyond. Host: Feet Banks
(Note: This episode contains profanity.) www.katieburrelltv.com
Mike Hopkins grew up in Rossland, BC where he learned to ride bikes and ski like we all wish we could. He absolutely rips. He started his career as a professional skier, then moved over to professional mountain biking. Working on the influential film Lifecycles was all the inspiration he needed to morph his career slowly but surely to a behind the lens kind of guy. Now he can do it all. Film, ride bikes, ski, scout locations, source props, the list goes on. He’s a film maker and creative concept creator that continues to make rad films, whether they're straight up commercials or inspiring insights into why people do what they do.
Host: Colin Field.
For much of his life, Michael Janyk was a professional alpine skier—a technical master banging gates on slalom and giant slalom courses around the world over a 14-year professional career that included three Olympic Games, one of them on his home turf in Whistler BC. And while saw some success (and knows what it’s like to stand on a world championship podium) Mike didn’t hit that childhood dream benchmark of Olympic gold, or "Best in the world." And while that is a common experience for nearly all athletes in every sport, not many share what that feels like from an athelete's perspective, and what keeps them going as they continue to grind it out and chase their passions. Mike does though, in first book “Go to the Start: Life as a World Cup Ski Racer”. Mountain Life editor Feet Banks sat down with him to learn more.
(Note: this episode contains occasional profanity and at one point discusses sexual abuse.)
Professional adventurer, explorer and national best-selling author Adam Shoalts is an absolute beast of outdoor adventure. Making first descents down untamed rivers in the western Hudson Bay lowlands, crossing the arctic by canoe or traveling by human power from southern Ontario to the Arctic, he’s done it all. Beginning as a newspaper columnist, he’s mapped rivers, led expeditions for the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, tracked endangered species, worked on archeological digs and so much more. With a masters and a PHD his research combines an interest in nature, history, archaeology, and geography. Adam sits down with Colin Field and explains why paddling upstream is a good idea.
Feet Banks hosts a little bit of inside baseball on the show today because our guest is moto-adventurer, stand-up paddleboarder, author, and inventor Todd Lawson, who also happens to be one of the co-publishers of Mountain Life. Todd has visited over 80 countries, and most of the time he arrives by moto, usually with his partner Christina alongside and, more recently, with their daughter. He's just released his first book, Inside the Belly of an Elephant: A motorcycle journey of loss, legacy, and ultimate freedom.
For today’s guest we have a guy that’s spent a lifetime advocating for the environment. A legend in Canada’s paddling circles, Hap Wilson has created a life many of us would envy.
Hap has been paddling Canadian Rivers for decades. He stopped counting mileage at 60,000 kilometres when he realized the numbers were pointless. He’s mapped numerous rivers and wrote the essential guide to the Missinaibi and the rivers of the Ottawa Valley; these guide books are meticulous in their detail; hand drawn maps of every set of rapids, indigeinous history and shuttle scenarios complete the pulbications. They’re incredible books and if you’re paddling any of the rivers he has a guidebook for, do yourself a favour and buy his book. The internet has nothing on Hap Wilson.
He’s a writer, an artist, a trail builder and an owner of an eco-lodge. He’s a conservationist and explorer. But to me, he’s an inspring guy who has questioned authority for decades and created a life of his own design.
Beat Steiner is a ski mountaineer pioneer with first descents on some of the South Coast Mountain's most iconic peaks (Tśzil & Nch'kay among them), but he's also a pioneer of early Canadian ski and snowboard filmmaking. He's the co-owner and CEO of Bella Coola Helisports, and even with all that pow to play with, Beat still happily gets 20+ days a year of early morning groomer speed laps. A skier's skier through and through, Beat sits down with Feet Banks to shoot the shit.
The two-year anniversary episode of Live it Up features, Derek Bird, the founding editor of Fly Fusion (Canada’s dopest fly fishing magazine). Derek is also a TV personality & producer, the mastermind behind the International Fly Fishing Film Festival. He joins host Feet Banks to talk fish, media, publishing, hot influencers, Artificial Intelligence, journalistic method and more.
As far as Canadian whitewater kayakers go, Benny Marr is one of its stars. According to Wikipedia he received the National Geographic Adventurer of the year in 2013. Although as you’ll hear in our chat, he’s not really aware of that. He’s completed a one day descent of the Stikine River in BC and has done expeditions to Papua New Guinea, the Congo, Chile, Zimbabwe and more. Films like Quality of Imagination, Locked In and the Grand Inga Project reveal some of the seriously incredible adventures he’s been a part of.
If you’re like me, whenever I watch whitewater kayakers one question always comes to mind; is it actually any fun to drop off a 110 foot waterfall? Ben has the answer.
Snowboarder Bryce Barnes joins Feet Banks to talk about the value of sour patch kids on any mountain mission, growing up shredding in Maine, snowboarding in Morocco, and what it’s like to be on the path to become the first ever Black person to get certified with the American Mountain Guides Association. Check Bryce's instagram at @backcountrybryce
If you’ve seen mountain bike shots from Italy, ski shots from Switzerland or vice versa, you’ve probably seen Mattias’s work. In fact, if you’re listening to this podcast, it’s guaranteed you’ve seen some of his photos. He's probably got more cover shots than just about anyone on the planet. The guy lives, breathes and eats skiing, biking, and simply getting outdoors. He regularly works with some of the best athletes and brands in the world and travels to some of the best locations to bike, ski, hike and generally take beautiful photos. Colin Field sits down with him to find out the secrets of his success.
Whitewater guide, adventurer, and author Tamar Globerman writes with a bravery you don’t see enough of in a literary genre about people doing risky and brave things. He latest book, Chasing Rivers: A Whitewater Life, is a vagabond adventure story that sees Tamar following her passion into most of North America's epic waterways, but the book is also about the places we travel inside ourselves—grief, loss, anxiety... as well as the sex, drugs and rocknroll side of mountain culture that so many other writers often glibly skip past. Basically she rules and she's badass and Feet Banks sits down with Tamar to find out why.
This week, Colin talks to SUP adventurer, photographer and filmmaker Scott Parent. Back before people were doing SUP crossings, Parent paddled across Georgian Bay; something no one had done before. It took 18 hours from stepping off land until he stepped back on land. No one has repeated that feat.
He's continued to do incredible things. From his winter crossing of Georgian Bay in 2016 to his 500 kilometre SUP trip in which his then 9-year-old daughter joined him on front of the board, the homegrown adventures continue.
As a photographer and film maker, he's a passionate defender of Georgian Bay and the Great Lakes. He says he'll continue to, "show up for the Bay, to serve it and protect it, in any way that I can."
Award-winning filmmaker Lara Shea isn't afraid to tackle some of the rawest human emotions and situations imaginable in her work and shine a bit of light into the darker corners of the outdoor culture. Feet Banks catches up with Lara just days before her second short documentary "Star in the Sky" premieres in her hometown of Revelstoke, BC. larashea.com
This week, Colin talks to Mario Rigby, a self-described explorer who simply comes up with an idea and goes for it. Whether he knows how to do it or not.
Mario walked the length of Africa from south to north in 2015. He kayaked the entire length of Lake Ontario in 2020. He drove an electric car across Canada in 2022.
He’s not doing these things the fastest. He’s not the first to do them, nor does he pick the most difficult route, but as a black explorer in the outdoor space, Mario’s adventures are getting attention. A member of the Explorer’s Club and a
fellow at the Royal Canadian Geographic Society, Mario’s passion is to represent people of colour in the outdoors—an arena they have largely been ignored in—while also advocating for the environment. Real change is not always easy but Mario’s resilience, patience, and determination make him the perfect man for the job. Learn more on Mario's website.
A reformed couch potato, Adam Hart is the author of a book called The Power of Food—100 Essential recipes for Abundant Health and Happiness, but these days he puts most of his focus into helping people—mostly busy parents— find the flow, break bad habits, kick unhealthy behaviours, and overcome their sandbag-y mindsets in order to enhance the quality of life for themselves and their loved ones. Check out his site clearimpact.io
OG Mountain Lifer Colin Field hosts this episode of "Live it Up" and he connects with Kari Medig, a photographer and adventurer whose images of skiing, mountain biking and exploring have graced the pages of outdoor magazines around the globe; including Mountain Life. Known for capturing the ski culture in the least likely of places, his images of skiers in India, Israel and the UK have produced some of his most memorable work. He captures portraits of jean-clad skiers on the slopes of Africa that somehow get you more stoked to go skiing than an epic, waist-deep image from Japan. Check out some of his work at karimedigphoto.com.
Avis is an indigenous weaver, teacher, dancer, singer and a Land- Based Cultural Empowerment Facilitator who comes from a family of notable snowboarders. Her Kwakwaka'wakw name N’alaga translates to "woman of light", or "bringer of light”, and that is exactly what she does through her work, which includes introducing indigenous people to their traditional arts, land, and culture through workshops that focus on topics like suicide prevention, addiction, and helping heal some of the inter-generational trauma that comes from centuries of genocide and colonization. Learn more about avis at her N'alaga Consulting page.
There are few as significant in the freeskiing world as Glen Plake, and perhaps none as well suited to share the stoke of simply sliding around on a pair boards and having a blast. One of a handful of people who helped “save skiing” and make it cool again in the late 1980s when a lot of the energy of the Hot Dog era was starting to fade, Glen talks about his life on skis, becoming a ski instructor, and why fresh powder is not the only thing that matters .
Writer, adventurer Meghan J Ward takes the time to talk about her life both as an adventurer and a parent, and especially as an adventuring parent, in her new book Lights to Guide Me Home: A journey off the beaten track in life, love, adventure, and parenting.The book tracks young Meghan’s undeniable pull towards the mountains and the wilderness and then goes into how she and her husband, renowned mountain landscape and photographer Paul Zizka, kept the good times, the travel, and the adventure rolling even after they had not one, but two kids! (Spoiler alert—it wasn’t all good times.) Check her website to learn more about Meghan and her words.
Jeremy Evans is a lifelong hunter, fisherman and outdoorsman from Alberta who ended up on the wrong end of a grizzly bear encounter back 2017. Attacked multiple times, Jeremy suffered massive injuries but managed to drag himself out of the bush—a crazy far distance— and, with the help of some incredible rescue and medical staff, lived to fish and hunt another day. And to co-write a book about the experience and the ramifications it had on his life and perspective. The book is called Mauled, Lessons Learned from a Grizzly Bear Attack. Get it here.
(Trigger warning: a tiny bit of profanity in this episode and some descriptions of massive trauma and injuries. )
Jeff Holden is one of the most iconic skiers in Whistler history. He found lines no one else would see, dropped cliffs no one else would consider. A true artist, seeker, and soul skier, Jeff took a few victories on the 1998-99 International Freeskiing circuit, won the overall championship and, with the help of one of the most-remembered Powder Magazine covers of all time, was launched into ski superstardom. After a some non-ski-realted injuries and the loss of a hugely important mentor and friend, Holdy stepped off the ski-star express and retreated into a path of healing, studying, and discovering how to best mentor young freeskiers to better and more safely express their own passions, while always remembering to "keep the vibe high."
Jeff Holden is one of the most iconic skiers in Whistler history. He found lines no one else would see, dropped cliffs no one else would consider, and launched into ski stardom after winning the 1998-99 International Freeskiing Championship and throwing down one of the most memorable Powder Magazine covers ever. After the loss of a good friend, some (non-ski-related) injuries, and a few other obvious signs, Holdy took a step back from ski scene, relocated to a cabin in the woods, and focused on the transition to mentorship and helping young skiers keep the vibe high.
Don Schwartz is one of the most badass dudes I’ve ever met. A snowboard pioneer (overall North American Champ 1988), he's also risen to the top as a barefoot water skier and endurance racer in events like the Death Race or World's Toughest Mudder. He’s also a ski guide and a helicopter pilot, which is pretty crazy because at age twenty, Don survived a tragic helicopter crash that left him badly burned and took the lives of three of his friends. In his new book "Beating The Impossible," Don talks about a life of comebacks, the power of the mind, and his journey with post tramautic stress syndrome. Get the book here.
Sarah-Jane Dobner is an author, rock climber, part time van lifer, mom and all around lovely person to chat too. Her book, A Feeling For Rock, is a collection of stories, poems, essays, cartoons, and musings on the climbing life and on being a woman in the climbing culture. Sarah Jane rips the finger tape off all the emotions that come with a life dedicated to putting one hand on the rock, then another. Along the way she serves up a fresh perspective and a nice cerebral window into the sport. Get the book at dobdobdob.co.uk
Siginaak Court Blackbird is the founder and Executive director of the Indigenous Life Sport Academy, an organization providing indigenous youth with access to unstructured sports like snowboarding, rock climbing, hiking and mountain biking create social change and development in indigenous communities across Canada. And also, to connect to their territories and have fun.
*link to the books court references https://www.ictinc.ca/free-ebooks
Emma Segal is a disruptive designer by trade but she’s also an author, and artist, the master of the infographic, educator, a chef, and someone who is probably going to be hands-on involved when we figure out how to save the world. She has a new cookbook out and schools Feet on everything from aspargus-urine odours to the intentional design behind almost every aspect of our lives.
Jim McLennan is a fly fishing guide, instructor, television personality, and author. After a life on the water you might even call him a purist, which is awesome because he has taught thousands of people to throw flies over the years and passed along—first-hand—much of the old-school knowledge and philosophy that’s also found in his writing. Jim’s latest book is Trout Tracks, is a collection of essays now available from Rocky Mountain books.
In 2005, with $20,00 earned the hard way (a car hit him whilst riding his bicycle), Robin Esrock embarked on a 23-country round the world tour with no real plan except to say yes to everything and let the wierdness lead the way. Along the way, he basically invented travel blogging (for better or for worse), kicked off a storied television and publishing career, and became one of the most storied and interesting dudes we know.
Frank Wolf is the kind of guy who just heads out there into the wild and cranks off incredible trips and adventures. Like a 171-day paddle across Canada or a ski tour across Baffin Island. He’s an author, a photographer, a filmmaker and on this episode he talks about bigfoots, lunching with a Prime Minister in stinking paddling gear, and why getting out there is easier than people thing.
Tony Richardson is a big wall climber and an industrial designer who has created gear for top-of-the-game outdoor brands, as well as up and comers. He's a tinkerer and a perfectionist and sometimes he has to accept that they've already made ten thousand of the plastic clip he suddenly knows how to make better. He also has a sick mullet. This one is for the gear junkies!
Lisa Lefroy has been described as the happiest person to ever ride a bike. A pioneer in the world of freeride mountain biking, Lisa's stoke for the shred and entrepreneurial spirit has brought her around the globe as an athlete, agent, and seat-of-her-pants event producer. These days she's back in the Squamish spreading the stoke through her unique bike rental company bikinginsquamish.com. We caught up to talk about the "dirty girls" days of the early freeride scene, breaking the sport in Panama, and how many bikes you can buy with an engagement ring diamond.
Long-distance athlete Hilary Matheson says that whenever she’s out in nature shooting photos, her experience as a runner and an athlete helps her better anticipate where the raw and authentic moments are going to turn up.
Catching up with professional backcountry skier Tatum Monod to talk about hunting, fishing, baking pies, growing up in a ski shop, colour coordinated closets and her latest ski film project Passage, available now on Red Bull TV.
To celebrate the end of 2021 we're taking it back to the old school to talk ski films with legendary Canadian filmmaker Christian Begin and Heavy Hitting director Travis Tetreault. Both celebrated notable anniversaries of key films in their careers this year (25 and 20 years), and both have lots to say about the old ways, the ski bum lifestyle, and why they miss VHS.
Parental Advisory: there are a couple instances of strong language and concepts in this episode so if you rock a hyper-protective parenting style maybe give this one a listen before you let your youngest kids drop in.
As ski season begins, British Columbia is reeling in a state of weather-induced emergency and even the crustiest deniers are starting to talk about the real effects of the climate crisis. Ian McIntosh has long been an advocate for climate action, but he's also veteran skier with roots in racing and freeski comps, and a filming and ski career that has spanned almost two decades and taken Ian to some of the worlds best mountain ranges. Who better to kick off the official start of ski season?
It's time to talk art with contemporary Indigenous artist Levi Nelson. Coming from the Lil'wat Nation in southwestern British Columbia, Levi is one of the most exciting artists in Canada right now and Feet caught up with him just before Levi took off to start his Masters degree at Columbia University in New York City.
Sarah Bulford (AKA @mountaindarlin) traded her lifetime of self-propelled adventure for an enduro dirtbike and never looked back. But with each new milestone of sucess, her social media platforms got more and more toxic. Feet Banks sits down with Mountain Life's Social Media Manager to talk braap babes, toxic masculinity, and the real value of free advice.
Is there a danger in turning what you love into what you do for a living? Is the outdoor industry at risk of losing the fun in amongst all that seriousness? Not if you're Brett Tippie there isn't. Host Feet Banks sits down with the legend of two sports, who's been a professional athlete for over three decades, to talk about art, shredding, e-bikes, jokes, and the new Brett Tippie Podcast. Join the fun!
Jon Turk earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1971 and was nominated by National Geographic as one of the Top Ten Adventurers of the Year in 2012. Between those bookends, he co-authored the first college-level environmental science textbook in North America, (plus 35 other texts) and five books about his many adventures —which include kayaking around Cape Horn and across the North Pacific from Japan to Alaska, a circumnavigation of Ellesmere Island, and made numerous first ski descents and first rock climbing ascents around the globe. With his (allegedly last) book Tracking Lions, Myth and Wilderness in Samburu hitting stores this September, Mountain Life caught up with Jon to talk about dirtbags, the power of nature, living in the moment, and how the stories we tell, and are told, have shaped human history.
For our inaugural foray into living it up on the airwaves, Mountain Life: Coast Mountains editor Feet Banks sits down with legendary climber/alpinist Tim Emmett to talk about getting outside, getting gnarly, knowing when to pull back from a goal, and why having a kid changes the game. So sharpen those edges and grease your chains, it's time to Live it Up.