Hall Of Famer Glen Plake Skis Mammoth Mt. - Ascend TV FULL EPISODE | Travel Docs | Life Out There

Alright, whenever you're ready. Alright, here we go. Trick server kids! That was amazing. The Sierra of California, a land filled with rugged mountains, diverse terrain, and especially this season, unlimited snow. Conveniently nestled in the heart of the Sierra is Mammoth Mountain, a year-round haven where pros and Joes rub shoulders and bond around the simple idea that there's snow on the ground. Mammoth's back parking lot is home to skiing legends, Glenn and Kimberly Plake, who call this place home during their favorite time of the year, spring skiing. Welcome to Big Red. Here she is. Come on in. Here's our humble abode. Storage, dining table, cabinets and pantry and all that. And guess what? The big reveal. Glenn! Say hi. Hey. Here it is, Big Red. Waxing them up. My name's Glenn Plake. I'm a professional snow skier and mountaineer and sportsman in general. I ride bicycles, I drive four-wheel drives and I ski and I climb. And like I said, I just really enjoy the outdoors regardless of what they are. Glenn Plake's skiing, style and spirit is like no other. His career spans from mogul fields to big mountains, landing him a spot in the Ski Hall of Fame. So if you don't know the name Glenn Plake, then do your homework. I'm also a ski movie star. We got like VCRs here. Fistful of Moguls, original cut. Mobius Flip. And this is a VCR player so you put the tape in here and these big things. This is Maltese Flamingo. It goes in here and kind of shakes around a little bit and then starts playing a video. So we usually will get those going. Nowadays we project, we can project it like onto the side of the truck. But we almost used to just use this little TV. I need to redo this area here but anyways. This year I started at Mammoth Mountain. We had early season snow. Didn't even ski any man-made at all this year. I have not skied man-made. On Christmas Day I left for Chamonix. We did have a couple of powder days that kind of spiced it up a little bit. And all of this and the whole process of the biggest winter in history with Bombo Genesis taking place in California on a daily basis. And I missed every bit of it. Come on over, come here. And then I'm usually here for the big chunk of spring because of the California ski touring. And Mammoth season is usually through July. So I'm usually committed to that. Now the ski room is good. I can do all my mounting in here. I got all my jigs. I'm good. Tool boxes are full. These things are ready. So you've been doing this for a long time. Are there any plans of slowing down? I'm in a position now where I've kind of been. I'm almost in a bridge position in a weird thing. I kind of came from a different time. And I've kind of gone through and now we're in definitely a different time in the sport that we tend to go through. And yeah, if I'm here to be a messenger or a link to another era. I might be the only person out there that certainly probably the only skiing pro that began their career on 220s and skinny skis. And skiing is messed up anyways. I mean come on. Freaking big old long things on your feet. You break your leg doing it. Gravity is in control. It's death defying. I like spring skiing because there's no attitude involved. Thank you guys. Bye. No friends at a powder day. Really? So you're just a jerk then, right? I'd rather have a couple of buddies skiing powder with me. Yeah. And unfortunately spring skiing and corn and stuff, it's like the more friends the better. I think I like that attitude better. If I've got to adopt a mantra, that's it. I do just like going to the mountain, kind of ripping an open track. The open practice. Doing laps and it does get your heart going. You do have to have a little bit of energy. Over the years, I think this whole powder snob attitude is getting a little bit out of hand. And when you're skiing in the spring, it's not here. Anybody skiing in the spring is here because they want to be here. There's probably a bicycle ride they could be on. There's probably some fishing they could be doing. Boat may have even been ran once or twice already. But you still go out of your way and decide, I'm going skiing today. Skiing is good right now. Yeah, so we tell everybody around here, go ahead, take your vacation whenever you want to take it, but take a vacation to Mammoth sometime in April, May, June. Have a blast. You'd be surprised. And it's ski season. You call it second season, call it whatever you want. It's ski season. If I never skied another day in December, it wouldn't bother me. Chances are there's no snow anyways. But there's always snow in February, March, April, May. Those are important ski months to me. As amazing as the spring skiing is right now, almost as important are the moments during the ski day that don't actually involve the act of skiing. The moments heading up the chair with your crew, hanging in the parking lot after a great sunny day. And of course, the coffee that helped to fuel it. Glenn is no stranger to these routines. Caffeine's my only vice. Thou shall not be decaffeinated. I think my message to people, and I would love to say it in many different ways, is fine. You know, I mean, we think of skiing as a winter sport, and it's not a winter sport. It's a freaking snow on the ground sport. If there's snow on the ground, we probably should think about skiing. This season marked an unbelievable snow year for California, yielding over 50 feet of snow through the winter. This meant that Mammoth had no problems staying open into August. Yep, we said August. You told me I'd never ski in December again. I'd be like, so? But if you tell me I can't ski in April or May, I'm going to be like, whoa, whoa, hang on a second. I'm going to be pissed. Skiing in California is an oxymoron to the world. However, there's a certain group of Southern California skiers that they want sunshine and having good, warm days. And we ski, and then we go mountain biking or road biking or climbing. I mean, this area in general has a lot to do other than just skiing in the morning or skiing in the afternoon or whatever you want to do. It does become that culture where it's something that's in your day-to-day life. The mountain is part of your day-to-day life. Thanks, you guys. Dave's got a broken ski. Did you see that from this winter? And he lost a pole. That's a big winner. Dave lost a ski. That sucks. Dave McCoy was the founder of Mammoth, and his family and friends devoted their whole lives to build what we get to play on all the time. Our iconic statue's got a guy skiing in short-sleeved shirts. What's that tell you? I think it's just a real statement of the fact that skiing isn't necessarily always done on some cold winter day. It's too dangerous then. There's avalanches and stuff. Springtime, it's just go like heck. Grandpa Dave had a tough winter, man. Awesome. Thanks, man. My pleasure. Turns out, when you pop into the town square with Glen, it might take a while to walk back out. You like skiing moguls? Get down, dude. What's your name? Jack. Where you live, Jack? This pen don't work. What's your name? Lola. What are you guys doing down here? You going skiing? Yeah. We've been skiing for a couple days. Oh, that's cool. You like skiing this time of the year? It's pretty fun, huh? Yeah. Jack, there you go, dude. Looking forward to going skiing with you, dude. Hey, Carter, man. Pleasure, dude. Without a doubt, dude. Without a doubt. No doubt. Hey, so here. Brand spanking new showroom. Check those out. No technical features whatsoever. 100% fashion only. Have a good rest of the season. See you on the hill. See you guys. Enjoy. Have a great trip, everyone. How was winter at Lee Canyon this year? Unreal. Look at you guys. You're wearing all my colors. I live in a Nevada State Park. There. That way you know where you're going. Thank you guys so much. No doubt. Enjoy Lee, huh? No doubt, man. Say hi to everybody down there. We'll see you at the parks. Definitely. Take care now. Yeah, yeah. For sure. That's funny. That's a cool mountain. Glenn and Kimberly always make time for the fans, constantly leaving them with a special memory and, of course, with a couple new friends. Microwave's going on for hot water. Gelatin. Nope. Already lit. Thank you. Oh, really? Oh, thank you. That's why you lose stuff. No, because I thought they were in the pink bag, not the blue bag. We've been happily married for over a year. Celebrating our third anniversary of our tent. Thank you. I tend to like things that take a lot of time to do. That's what it is. This isn't a secret. How did the Mohawk start? When did you first do it? It was just raising cane in the neighborhood and going to punk rock shows and having funny-looking haircuts. But at the same time, as a mogul skier, I was dancing this line of, you're supposed to be Ken. A Ken doll. US Ski Team. Prim and proper. Blonde hair. Well-shaven. But that wasn't the life I was living. Shoot, man. I was a friggin' mogul skier. It was a friggin' down-and-dirty part of mogul skiing, especially mogul competition. I was going to punk rock shows to get ready for the comp. To get ready to compete the next day. Doesn't take that long after all. I just kind of got sick of it. That I was living these two faces. I'd put on happy face for the judges but that wasn't the life I was living every other day of the week. Finally, I think I showed up to regionals first time. Like in my leather jacket and my mohawk up. It was like, here we go. We were skiers. We were hoping our films would relate what was going on in the world of skiing. The ski industry was terrified of us. They hated us. They didn't want anything to do with us. But some people did. I'm very, very lucky that my fame is from me being myself. I'm not an actor. I'm known for who I am. They say don't ever meet your heroes. I don't want to be that person. Hopefully when they meet me they realize I've been liking the right guy. Shall we? Go find some moguls? We're parasites in this weird thing called the resort industry. We're these rough and tumble rat pack group of skiers. And we're hanging out in this weird resort kind of cruise ship industry. It's a really weird paradox that we kind of live within as skiers, true skiers. What's your best trick? I can ski moguls. Period. I love it. I love what they do to me physically. I love what they do to me technically. I love the idea of just being able to ski anywhere at any ski area regardless. Because I know there's going to be some bumps. But at the same time I think mogul skiing is so welcoming to all levels. Whether you're just bouncing along and can't hardly do it at all. You're right there with let's say somebody that's very proficient at it and you're like, wow, look how they do that. It's so cool. I think there's a social aspect of it because a good mogul run has to have a chair lift over it. It's just part of it. Because there is that kind of show off aspect of it. We can ski all day and never raise our heartbeat up once. We ski a quarter of a mogul run and you're like, whoa. And I just think they're fun. I think they're complex. I think it is absolutely the final frontier. It's really, really fun. I really love mogul skiing. Do you think having your life so based on skiing, do you think skiing helped shape you as a person, as a human? Yeah, skiing Yeah, skiing is, when it's all said and done, skiing is it for me. When you take it all away, give it all. Whatever you want to do, give me it all and take it all away. Ultimately, skiing is probably still there as the anchor. It's the one thing other than my wife. And fortunately, it's her anchor too. You know, skiing is kind of what we ultimately when we're up, what the heck is happening here? It's kind of like, I don't know. Skis are taking us that way. How many days do you guys ski a year? Like 80 or something? 80 days a year from Ohio. Dad's in trouble for pulling you out of school, but we'll deal with that later. I don't know, it's just skiing. It's an all ages show. It's another cliche that I say. Going back to old punk rock, you know, kind of world that I grew up in and around. And I really believe that skiing is an all ages show. I do not believe that a person that did a backflip 50 years ago is any mindset different than somebody over here this week doing a backflip or doing some trick. I don't believe that there is any difference in that human brain. That's why I think multiple generations of families can ski together. That's why I think we can go out here today and ski with anybody of age, regardless of their age, and find some joy in that person's skiing day, and also your skiing day. I really think it's all completely interchangeable. I think I've showed everybody that the road does lead somewhere, and I hope that there's some younger generations and kids that go hang on. Maybe I should call up Plake and ask for some advice. It seems like he may have been there maybe before. All fashion, no action. Where am I right now? We go out and ski, try to be as healthy as possible and passionate as possible. I've always said you've got to be involved to evolve, and I'm proud to say that I've been so involved that I have, in fact, evolved. And will continue to. Here we are.