Life at 10,000 Feet

Bumming Colorado's Ski Country

June 2023

A Documentary Film. Follow Kent Gunnufson as he works his way through Colorado's Ski Country while meeting super-talented people along the way… and documenting his life as he went.

Our College Days Ski Safari

July 5, 2020

During my freshman year, two friends took me under their wings. The result: a 9-day ski safari to Aspen, Alta, Sun Valley and Steamboat Springs — and the entire trip cost only $32.

Medical Flights to Sierra Madre

July 5, 2020

A group from the Arvada Rotary Club have flown into Guachochi, Mexico, for several years to bring medical aid and eye care to the community. Each trip generates both adventure and a high sense of satisfaction of giving.

Carl Rapp – Climbing Mt. Whitney

February 21, 2022

Carl tells about our adventure climbing Mt. Whitney at the end of our sophomore year in high school. He was a close friend for over 62 years — a really good person who gave so much back to his community. Unfortunately we lost Carl to Covid-19 complications.

Boot Gordon

My senior year at CU, I already knew I wanted to move to Aspen after graduating. In 1968, Loveland was opening in October and all serious skiers were there. I instructed at Loveland part time and found myself riding up the chairlift with another instructor from Aspen.

Survival at Sierra Madre

July 2, 2020

The Arvada Rotary Club held a number of eye-glass and medical clinics in Guachochi, an 8,000-foot high community in Mexico. One winter I had a lifetime experience that made for an extraordinary story of survival.

A Shower at -20 Below Zero

When I was building my home on a mountaintop overlooking Breckenridge, I took a shower before the house was closed in. Follow the link and choose to watch the video or read the text.

Anthony Powell – Antarctic Photographer

October 27, 2020

This is the short version of Anthony Powell talking about the difficulties in dealing with subzero conditions in making his film Antarctic – A Year on Ice. Powell spent 15 months at the bottom of the world capturing the aurora australis and the brutal beauty of the ice continent.

Anna Day Heiser (Sheri Zepplin)

June 21, 2020

Sheri designed and built her own contemporary home next door to mine at 10,000 feet in Breckenridge — the only contemporary stucco exterior I know of at that altitude. She didn't build a house, she created a piece of art.

Father John

June 21, 2020

Our local Catholic Minister can relate to the locals because he's out doing the same things we do. He builds homes and carries a carpenter's belt with the best of them. His adaptation to the mountain environment reminds me of the historically famous Father Dyer.

President Ford

When I decided my documentary wouldn't be complete without a perspective from President Ford, I wrote him to see if he would help me. A week later I received a letter — without a stamp, but with a presidential signature — granting me an interview at his Beaver Creek home.

Harold Horn - Mountain Miner

While exploring the ghost towns up the Swan River, I came across an old time miner named Harold Horn, who had lived and mined the same high country as Carl Fulton. He was hard of hearing, but it didn't stop him from telling me about his unique life — or the mother lode still waiting to be found.

The Life of Jim Rinoshek

Back in 1978, Jim Rinoshek was the layout man on Beaver Run Condominiums. Later I discovered he also owned the St. Bernard Inn, hosted Good Morning Breckenridge as a degenerate character named Cliff Clower, and had a past that included being thrown out of Aspen for the anchovy dance.

Bob and Kitty Bennett

Bob and Kitty Bennett lived one door down from our home up Boreas Pass. Before they left for Florida, we went up to the Overlook Restaurant for one last visit — and they held nothing back about eight years of life at 10,000 feet.

Carl Fulton: Winter of 1898

In his own unedited words, miner Carl Fulton describes surviving the catastrophic winter of 1898–1899 at Swandyke — 13,000 feet up, cut off for 94 days, his stamp mill destroyed by an avalanche, and searching for his lost father in a blizzard.

Jamie Frieze: Lady Carpenter

Jamie Frieze pulled her backpack out of a truck when she arrived in Breckenridge and never left. She slept in a bookstore, lived in a decayed log cabin up Boreas Pass, and became one of the best carpenters on the job — better than many of the men.

Melissa Kuwahara: Teenage Wrangler

Melissa grew up at 10,000 feet in Breckenridge — on skis before age three, two-time Summit County dog champion with an aging poodle named Moony, and teenage wrangler herding forty-five horses down a rain-slicked Boreas Pass Road.

Rick Hum: From Wall Street to the High Country

Rick Hum left a vice-president position at First National City Bank in New York, took a two-week ski vacation in Colorado, and never went back. A conversation about consulting, community, and what keeps a man at 10,000 feet.

Griffith Gunnufson

Born in Durango, raised in Breckenridge — on skis at two, patient companion on photography searches, and a fourth-grader with his own take on mountain life.