GREG STUMP: BUMPS, BALLET, CAMERA, ACTION

07 Feb GREG STUMP: BUMPS, BALLET, CAMERA, ACTION

He won his first competition at Sugarloaf in 1970 at age nine. In 1978, he took the Junior National Championships at Copper Mountain, Colorado. His strengths: bumps and ballet. When he won the North American Freestyle Championships at Edelweiss Valley, Ontario, Greg Stump became the first ever international amateur freestyle champion.

Stump’s prowess caught the eye of two iconic film makers in the ski genre: Dick Barrymore, who featured him in “Vagabond Skiers,” (Barrymore’s last film) and Warren Miller. His work with the two pioneers convinced Stump he could do it too. Maybe better. Certainly louder. And film is where Stump has had the greatest impact.

In his first movie, in 1983, Stump focused his cameras on boarders as well as well as skiers and helped that sport grow.

Before Stump, extreme skiing was a thing among just a handful of adrenaline seekers. Stump’s 1988 “Blizzard of Aahhh’s,” considered by many the best ski film ever produced, brought Scot Schmidt, Glen Plake, and Mike Hattrup together on near-vertical chutes and threatening cliffs, with the action set to red hot soundtracks powered by British rock producer Trevor Horn. With “Blizzard” Stump laid claim to new turf in his genre. He became, in the words of Playboy Magazine, the “true master of gonzodom.”

In 1999, Greg Stump was honored by Skiing Magazine as one of the 25 most influential people in skiing of all time. In 2005, he was named to the Maine Ski Hall of Fame. Stump has also made commercials and music videos/documentaries about Willie Nelson, Seal, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Neil Young, Ricki Lee Jones, Los Lonely Boys, Dinosaur Jr., and The Beach Boys.

And now the semi-autobiographical “Legend of Aahh’s.”

Stump is in Telluride for the premiere of the film at the historic Sheridan Opera House. The screening takes place Friday, February 10, 8 p.m.

Proceeds from the evening benefit the Sheridan Arts Foundation and the Telluride Historical Museum. (For details see related post.)

To learn more about Greg Stump from the horse’s mouth, click the “play” button and listen to him rap with Travis Julia, one of the producers of the event.