PORT ANGELES — It’s all in a Saturday night.
Biking, skiing and rafting across Denali, that 20,320-foot giant also known as Mount McKinley.
Wandering from Argentina’s Las Lenas down to Chile’s Patagonia.
Frolicking, nonmotorized, across three other continents.
This is the Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival, a 90-minute world tour screening in downtown Port Angeles at 7 p.m. Saturday.
The venue is Bar N9ne, 229 W. First St., and your ticket is $10.
“Solitaire,” a short movie about a long trip across South America, is the “best of the fest” feature and one of nine films chosen for the traveling show.
The Backcountry Film Festival is on its seventh annual international tour, with screenings later this winter in Seattle and several Canadian cities.
The Port Angeles stop is hosted by the Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club, whose mission is to encourage wintertime recreation in and around this town.
All ages are welcome at the screening, which will wrap up by 9 p.m. Saturday.
“There’s footage from five of the seven continents,” said Greg Halberg, a Hurricane Ridge club board member.
Movies varied
The movies, which range in length from a few minutes to half an hour, include one from Kyrgyzstan titled “Forty Tribes,” plus “Ski Bums Never Die,” “Winters of My Life” and the aforementioned “Bike/Ski/Raft Denali Traverse.”
“Chalk and Ski,” producer Chris Dicky’s chalk-in-hand daydream about skiing and winter, and “Breaking Trail,” a vision of deep powder by brothers Noah and Jonah Howell, also will light the screen at Bar N9ne.
There are also some funny shorts, Halberg added, such as the one about avalanche rescue cats.
As for “Solitaire,” it’s “really about being in the mountains and less like a Warren Miller-style ski film,” he said.
The film has a narrator who quotes in Spanish from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the story of a man who goes into the wilderness to discover himself.
The Backcountry Film Festival was created to highlight the Winter Wildlands Alliance’s efforts to preserve and conserve winter landscapes for “quiet users,” those who ski or hike free of petroleum-powered snowmobiles and helicopters.
When the festival came to Port Angeles last year, it was standing-room only, noted Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club member Danielle Lawrence.
“So arrive early and grab a bite to eat,” she advised.
The club invites newcomers to its events at Bar N9ne every second Saturday of the month through May.
On Feb. 11, the movie “FreeRider,” featuring Pacific Northwest split-boarder and mountaineer Kyle Miller, will screen at 7 p.m., and admission will be a suggested $5 donation.
In it, Miller speaks about his passion for the wilderness, his ski-bum lifestyle and his trips up to remote peaks in the Olympic Mountains.
For more information about the Hurricane Ridge club activities as well as ski lifts and lessons in Olympic National Park, visit www.HurricaneRidge.com.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
