skiing: Shane McConkey

Tonight's CBS 60 Minutes had a great segment on wingsuit jumps off mountains (watch it). At 8:15 JT Holmes reminisces about his friend, skiing icon Shane McConkey. Shane died last year when he couldn't release his skis in time — he was combining skiing and wingsuit flying just as he earlier combined skiing and BASE jumping. Fly like a bird, about 1 in 400 risk of dying doing what you love.

The only ski movie I own is
there's something about McConkey:

From ridiculously exposed mountain goat descents to Alaskan peak straightlines, from full-twisting switch backflips in the terrain park to double backflips off cliffs, from building base jumps to swinging on helicopter skids, from rock skiing to stream skiing to the inebriated shenanigans of Saucerboy, ...
The film focuses on the abilities, attitudes and antics that have made McConkey a hero for a generation

Indeed when he died, messages boards were split between "He died doing what he loves, he's my hero" and "He had a wife and kid, unlike a fireman he risked his life for nothing, he's no hero", which shows “hero” has both the Greek ideal for-the-greater-good and an ironic worshipping-false-gods meaning.

After that movie he tried skiing on waterskis which led to his invention the first reverse camber ski, the Volant Spatula, followed by the K2 Pontoon and now a whole category of reverse camber and rocker skis.