I just come back from the cinema where I watched the movie Mount St Elias. It is an epic and fascinating documentary about the longest downhill ski run on Mount St. Elias. As it’s written on many blogs and maybe spread out with the Red Bull hype about the multi-million dollar budget production, this wasn’t the first downhill ski run on Mount St. Elias as it was actually done before, back in 2000, by a team of 3 American skiers. There seems to be some confusion around on some sides but what Axel Naglich and Peter Ressmann archived is the record for vertical feet skied in one route, 5 Kilometers of vertical from the summit to the mountain’s base. That’s over 4900 meter!

I really enjoyed watching the movie. The camera people earn my biggest respect for their hard work, capturing all these intense moments in extreme weather and terrain conditions. Mount St Elias is one of the hardest mountains to climb, not because of the altitude, but of the difficult terrains and the horrendous weather, which can change within minutes and storm’s lasting for months and drop hundreds of feet snow. And let’s be honest here, St Elias wasn’t climbed for years because of the difficult weather and terrain conditions, Naglich and Ressmann not only summit, they even skied down after the summit, 5 Kilometers of vertical from the summit to the mountains that’s 4900 meters vertical feet!  Just one little mistake in this difficult vertical terrain and you are dead!

Sadly Peter Ressmann died in March this year in Pinzgau/Salzburger Mountains, when he guided a group of tourists during an outdoor adventure. It seemed to be a stupid mistake he did, a second of inattention, when he felt 25 meters of the rock into a river bed. He was dead immediately. He climbed and skied the most difficult terrains and routes and suddenly killed himself during a routine climb. Sad story.

This movie is definitely worth to watch, keeps you in the seat for 1.5 hours and is good stoke for our coming winter!

Watch the making off/trailer if you haven’t seen it!

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