“Do yourself a favor and take 12 minutes to watch Rare Enough. A short story of @djaystewart, as he battles the unimaginable while finding joy through friends, family and skateboarding,” Tony Hawk.
Imagine having your life be everything you always dreamed. New wife, new house, great job, good friends and an athletic life.
All of the sudden, darkness washes over you.
Groggy, you wake up in a hospital bed. The doctor walks in and says that you had a seizure, you have brain cancer and 13 months to live.
That’s what happened to DJ Stewart in May of 2019. Skateboarder, business owner, husband, friend, family man, and overall life enthusiast, DJ was living the dream with a lot of life ahead of him. That was until the unthinkable occurred.
RARE ENOUGH— a short documentary directed by Ryan Lovell—takes you on an intimate journey through DJ’s story with DJ himself in the driver’s seat.
From his initial diagnosis to countless treatments, this visually compelling film documents how DJ’s attitude, friendships, and the Kansas City community are helping him beat the unbeatable.
Directed by Ryan Lovell Director of Photograhpy: Chris Durr Editor: Ben Kaplan Sound Design: Ben Kaplan and Connor Birch Audio Mix: Connor Birch Audio Post Production: The Post Haus Colorist: Matthew Filipek Key Grip: Pat Monroe Camera Operators: Tyler Krupski & Shawn Wright Art Department: Cory Hinesley First AC: Evan Wunsch Main Title Design: Mitch Durr
We locals like to claim High West Whiskey as our own but with skiing at its roots, High West owners were bound to spread the love to other ski areas. The award-winning whiskey has teamed up with Mammoth Mountain for a brand-new pop-up experience. God, I wish we did something like that here!
It all started in Park City, Utah. The High West Saloon set up the first ski-in gastro distillery in the world in 2009 and has been packed to the rafters ever since. I gave up trying to get in for après long ago. Maybe if they were able to sprawl across a mountainside, I could actually buy a Deadman’s Boot when I wanted one.
Now, High West is taking its signature après-ski experience to California at 11,053 feet. Makes me so jelly! Despite us Utahns having better all-around skiing, Mammoth Mountain parties down way better than the beehive state. Can you imagine, Vail Resorts allowing pop-up bars on their mountain? Well, Mammoth is hosting TWO High West pop-ups serving up their whiskey and cocktails to thirsty skiers through March 13, 2022.
Blue Run to the Bar Crawler
Only real powder rippers and shredders can reach this exclusive bar by heading to the backside. Soak up the beautiful vistas from the new High West snowcat bar at The Outpost, while enjoying one of three specialty High West cocktails: Old Fashioned, Horse’s Neck, and of course, the Hot Toddy. Set against the snowy surroundings, it’s the perfect respite between runs to pop off your skis. Open every Thursday–Sunday from 11AM – 2 PM.
Après-Ski Sips
End your afternoons with a cozy cocktail at The Dry Creek Bar Deck at Mammoth Mountain Inn for more High-West style hospitality. The Western-inspired Whiskey Lounge features High West specialty cocktails onsite. Open every Thursday–Sunday from 3PM – 6PM.
Games & Giveaways
Try your hand at corn hole or grab your crew for a shotski round. Then, spin the wheel for a chance to win special prizes like headbands, flasks, candles, pins and keychains. Each drink purchase includes a raffle ticket so you’ll go home with a High West souvenir from your trip.
Woodward Park City just became one of the official training centers of the US Ski and Snowboard Team. Along with Woodward Copper, Colo., Woodward Park City, Utah, will usher our US freeride athletes into the 2026 Olympic Winter Games in Milano, Cortina, Italy.
Located north of big daddy Park City Mountain. Woodward takes park and pipe seriously… unlike Vail Resorts which chose to massage Park City Mountain into a safe family experience, eliminating night skiing, mountain bike parks and dialing down park and pipe activities. Woodward stepped up to fill the void in 2019.
When Vail Resorts scooped up Park City Mountain in 2014, the former owner, Powdr Corp., didn’t take its ball and go home. Nope, they focused their efforts on one of their other properties down the road- Gorgoza Tubing Park. They plotted, developed and waited. Four years after losing PCM, Powdr got the green light from Summit County to build a Woodward Camp at the tubing hill.
Woodward opened in 2019 and it didn’t take long for the freeride world to recognize this gem. With endorsements from national sports celebrities like Shaun White, Tony Hawk, Travis Pastrana and Joss Christensen it was only a matter of moments before focus shifted from Park City Mountain to this little-known Interstate-80 sidehill.
Just stroll around and see what Powdr Corp has been up to since exiting PCM. In addition to indoor foam pits and trampolines for ski jump and BMX training, there are three types of outdoor terrain venues. There’s the Learning Zone that hosts a “smart park” with rollers, drop-in ramps, small gully “mini-pipes” and a magic carpet all built on a low grade for beginners and three “progressive” parks that build up from small to medium snow and jib features.
In the Experiential Zone, beginner to expert terrain park users can practice berms, rollers, hits, jumps, rails, wall rides and, when ready, move onto the Performance Zone. This area is designed to enable competition-level athletes to hone their skills, tricks and air off of training features like a 22-foot halfpipe and big air jump.
In fact, Woodward’s halfpipe is one of the few in the world that is dug into the earth as opposed to being constructed out of surface snow.
“It’s been amazing to see Woodward embrace progression and training areas indoors and on-mountain at both Copper and Woodward Park City,” said five-time Olympian and professional snowboarder Shaun White during the 2022 Olympic Media Summit. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the pipes at both places the past two seasons getting ready for the Olympics.” He called Woodward a “consistent and reliable place for high-performance shredding.”
U.S. Ski & Snowboard Freestyle, Freeski and Snowboard Director Jeremy Forster announced in his press release, “We’re thrilled to partner with Woodward to elevate our freeski and snowboard athletes’ training. Woodward’s facilities at Copper Mountain and in Park City will provide key year-round training for our Pro and Rookie Team athletes for years to come.”
Just so you know, Woodward is also a great place to learn to ski and ride. If you already have gear, you can take a two-hour group lesson for just $139 or an all-day group lesson for $279. The area also offers one of the cheapest intro packages along the Wasatch Front. With the “Take 3 Ride Free” package, beginner skiers and snowboarders get three, two-hour lessons, lift tickets, rentals and a one-month Mountain Park Pass (after completing the three lessons) all for $349.
It may be Day Three but there’s still plenty of time to get in on the Sundance Film Festival game. Unlike the in-person experience where everything is sold out months in advance and people wait hours in a freezing-cold standby line, hoping package holders don’t show up for a particular screening, the online or “virtual” Sundance Film Fest is the ultimate version of “inclusive”. No matter where you live, your socio economic status or the company you keep, the only thing holding anyone back from watching a Sundance flick will be their tech savviness.
Only Buffers a Few Times
The complaints and drama abound regarding the 38th Annual Sundance Film Festival. In an effort to “do the right thing”, organizers killed the live part and went virtual without much notice. The technology was in place thanks to last year’s Covid chaos but visitors expecting to finally travel to Park City, Utah, for January had purchased ticket packages upwards of $750 for live screenings and events that would not happen. Sundance’s response to the request for refunds was to thank everyone for their donation; leaving people with only one option – rage on Facebook and dispute the charges with their credit card companies.
Then there was the automatic cancelling of everyone’s ticket selections (including thoses who only had online tickets) in order to transition to their online platform and forcing everyone to start anew. Because the live screenings moved to virtual, there was shuffling to be done and it wouldn’t be fair to make those with live tickets have to take the leftovers.
Another issue that was immediately apparent were the struggles older generations faced trying to link computers to smart TVs. Sundance developed a Festival app that, if you could understand the instructions, was fairly easy to download, connect to your account and stream all of your selections on Roku, FireTV, etc. Your movies sit on a screen of thumbnails and switch from “coming soon” to “renting” as soon as they hit their screening time. However, many took to Facebook to complain about not getting pin codes, not finding their films after the setup, or having their movie stop mid-play and getting kicked out of the app. It did happen once to me but I was able to immediately return to my film where it left off. Another bonus is the ability to pause to grab a snack or use the bathroom.
Taking Your Online Picks
If you’ve done it once, you can do it again. With my former selections in hand, I easily navigated to my first choices and selected them all over again. Thanks to increased bandwidth, only a handful of films are now sold out – like the three awesome movies I’ve seen so far (The Worst Person in the World, Call Jane, Fresh) and the Sundance team is holding out on the Best of Fest tickets until later in the week so those might be available to watch then. If you want to watch a Sundance film it’s entirely possible.
Single Ticket Prices For Sundance Films
It’s a pricey $20 ($15 for Utahns) to screen one Sundance film from your couch but invite five friends and it suddenly makes sense. Have them buy the cocktails, popcorn or pizza and it’s a better deal than the theater. The only differences between a Premiere ticket and a second screening ticket is that you have a shorter window to watch your movie (three-hour window vs. 24-hour window) and the chance to participate in a 30-minute live Q and A after the premiere. But because these live chats can only be viewed on a computer and, let’s be real, we all would rather toss to a 55″, you’re better off going for the second screening tickets where you have more flexibility to see the movie and you can watch the replay of the Q and A for free later if you want. For example, I watched Call Jane and a few hours later, I opened up my computer, surfed to the film description and clicked “watch the Q and A replay”. BTW, these recorded Q&As are available to all and not just ticket holders.
You can also purchase a Day Pass, $75, and watch movies until your brain explodes or the day ends; whichever comes first. The Explorer Pass ($25) will get you access to the short films, the New Frontier and three of the Indie Series programs.
See Sundance Films In Theaters
Twenty cities including Salt Lake City are planning in-person ‘satellite’ screenings. If you want a pseudo Sundance experience check out this list of live events to see if there’s a theater near you.
Throwing it back to the days of neon, skinny skis and Hot Dog, Look Bindings + Pit Viper put together a fun, wild short featuring the fictional International Pro Skier Tryouts. This could be a legit thing if the current ski landscape wasn’t filled with safety Karens and liability questions. Ah, the good old days!
Who remembers the Chinese Downhill? This competition will come down to the fastest, the highest, the most extreme lines ever shred by Spandex-clad skiers on straight skis. I’m still impressed by the gal jumping rope in ski boots! It’s Sander Badley vs. Turbo at the International Pro Skier Tryouts. Who will finish with all the glory?
