Banff prize winner profiles B.C. mountaineer

No Banff World Tour showing in Spokane would be complete without screening the always-popular People’s Choice award winner selected by audience voting at the Banff Festival.

This year’s winner – also named the 2010 best film on mountain culture – is distinguished because it originates a day’s drive from Spokane and follows a story that made headlines here and around the continent.

A Life Ascending (http://alifeascending.com/) profiles ski mountaineer Ruedi Beglinger, who runs Selkirk Mountain Experience and lives with his wife and two young daughters at the remote Durrand Glacier in British Columbia.

The film follows his family’s unique life in the mountains and their journey in the years following a massive avalanche that killed seven people in 2003 near Revelstoke.

The lead guide that day was Beglinger, a Switzerland native with the highest level of mountain guiding certification and decades of experience.

Until that day, SME trips had never had a serious injury or death during its then 18 years in business.

Filming for A Life Ascending began in 2006 and required three winters to capture the spectacular footage.

“I went in thinking I was making a film about Beglinger,” said director Stephen Grynberg. “But it ended up being about his family.”

The audience at Banff responded to the presentation of this film with a standing ovation.