![]() LYDEN: Those were three of the skiers who appear in the documentary "Steep," Lou Dawson, Glen Plake and Doug Coombs. DOUG COOMBS (Big-Mountain Skier, "Steep"): I tried to become a normal person and have a normal job but that didn't work. GLEN PLAKE (Big-Mountain Skier, "Steep"): I didn't choose my life in the mountains. That's where I had to go to make it all right again. Soon as I got of broken legs, I went skiing. LOU DAWSON (Big-Mountain Skier, "Steep"): Soon as I got out of jail, I went skiing. Unidentified Man: What he meant is that there is so much out there that you can receive from that environment. He said go to the mountains and get their good tidings. Unidentified Man: John Muwer(ph) said it really beautifully. I don't think there is some grand psychological profile that can be applied to them. It's not that these people are not suicidal. I don't think it's an aberrational activity. And extreme skiing is just one of those forms. OBENHAUS: I think people or humans have an appetite for adventure. LYDEN: Why do you think people want to do this? It really is the image that started the whole idea of big mountain or extreme skiing here in the United States. And he was able to go to the local newspaper editor who had an airplane and fly around it, and she actually took a group of pictures, which later became a poster, which I believe you can still buy today. And it was his good fortune that the weather conditions were such that his tracks, starting from the very, very top of the Grand Teton to near the bottom or the valley, were still on the mountain. ![]() OBENHAUS: Once he had done it, he wanted the world to know it. LYDEN: Screenwriter Mark Obenhaus picks up the story. And Briggs was climbing and skiing on a surgically fused right hip. ![]() He would have to ski along cliffs that dropped off for thousands of feet. Unidentified Man: People in Jackson told Bill skiing the Grand was impossible. A skier named Bill Briggs had the unthinkable idea to climb the Grand Teton and ski down. LYDEN: Extreme skiing began as a sport in two places - in the French Alps and in 1971 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And if you were to fall, you would go over cliff or something and just throw - or just plummet for such a length of time that you've be pummeled to death. It's so steep and so dangerous there's no stopping. The phrase that's used by so many people in skiing, that in your fall, you die terrain. There are runs in the film that it would be impossible to stop on, and you have to ski him out. Your ability to stop is really compromised by the pitch. MARK OBENHAUS (Director Screenwriter, "Steep"): The force of gravity is tremendous. I spoke with the director and screenwriter of "Steep," Mark Obenhaus, about what sets extreme skiing apart from what we see from even the most proficient Olympic skier do. One of the skiers in "Steep" died just days after he was interviewed for the film. These extreme athletes can be chased by avalanches as they race down mountains at speeds of up to 60 miles an hour. There are no resorts, no trails and almost no second chances. The film "Steep" literally induces vertigo with its helicopter shots of skiers charging down sheer cliffs off some of the world's most rugged mountains. We stay in frigid climes for our next story, a new documentary on the sport of extreme skiing.
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