Diana Nyad was parched.

Could you blame her? She of marathon swimming and now red carpet fame had just delivered a rousing speech to a packed house at the Denver Art Museum this past Sunday, June 1, during the two-day ���ϳԹ�����Festival. After the speech, Nyad stood under the midday Colorado sun in front of a long queue of autograph seekers, all clutching copies of her 2016 memoir Find a Way. Nyad spoke to each person, delivering wisdom about overcoming goggle tans or facing down fear, hugged them, and then signed the publication. But even marathon swimmers sometimes get thirsty.

And only one refreshment��would do. “I need a snow cone!” Nyad barked.

The handful of us manning the autograph tent—editors, film producers, and advertising reps—looked at each other in confusion. Luckily for Nyad, snow cones were not far away. Chris Keyes, the general manager for ���ϳԹ���, and SKI editor-in-chief Sierra Shafer were making the icy treats at nearby booth. Moments later, a piña colada-flavored ball of shaved��ice arrived for our guest of honor, who bit into it mid-soliloquy without missing a beat.

This scene played out on Sunday, the second day of the festival. I was there alongside dozens of my ���ϳԹ��� coworkers. We abandoned our day jobs of editing feature stories and selling advertisements to cosplay as event promoters. Look, I’m absolutely biased here, but the shindig we helped throw ruled. The inaugural ���ϳԹ��� Festival had killer tunes, engaging outdoor films, celebrity book signings, dog stunts, bike stunts, food, and too many other events to list. Based on my extremely rough estimate, a billion zillion people showed up to dance and attend panel discussions and pet doggies, and everyone one of them was stoked.��(No, this is not the official attendance count.)

My gig—half crowd management, half info kiosk—was a job that any journalist would have been proud to do. I managed the author autograph booth alongside Scott Burgess, the director of operations for ���ϳԹ��� TV, Kate Muller, ���ϳԹ���’s sales director, and an ex-NFL cheerleader in a In between my duties—wrangling Nyad and author Kevin Fedarko, and pointing lots of sweaty people to the closest hydration station—I perused the festival grounds to check out the sights and sounds and mingle with guests.

I met a ton of friendly attendees, all of whom love the outdoors. They told me all sorts of anecdotes about their time at the festival. Here’s what I saw and heard:

Groovin’ and Movin’

Crowds funneled into the festival grounds Saturday evening just as the sun began to set. Lights illuminated Denver’s City and County building behind the main stage as some warmup music prompted everyone to get on their feet for the next act,��Thundercat

In the crowd, Micah Gurard-Levin, 39, also rose. Gurard-Levin is a former pianist who now works the director of community impact for broadband communications company Liberty Global. He didn’t know Thundercat’s music but his friends did, and after a few opening bars of the first song, he got into the groove.

“It was this real avant-garde fusion of jazz and funk—a style I hadn’t heard in a while,” Gurard-Levin told me. “It was like music from an old-school eighties video game. Like, you’re about to fight the final boss and the music gets faster.”

Everyone was dancing as the skies darkened. Gurard-Levin looked at the crowd and noticed that the makeup had changed. Earlier in the day, he said, the attendees looked like hardcore outdoor enthusiasts. As the festival progressed, he said, the makeup evolved—younger and more diverse crowd added to the climbers, runners, and cyclists.

“That was the big macro picture for me—there was this intersection between different communities in the park,” he said. “And everyone was having fun.”

A Meeting to Remember

Talia Hoke, 45, sat in the crowd at the Sturm Pavilion and listened to three speakers share their stories during the “Journeys of Purpose” panel on Saturday afternoon. One of them, wildlife biologist Dr. Rae Wynn-Grant, caught Hoke’s attention. Dr. Wynn-Grant said the outdoor world felt alien to her growing up, because it appeared to be the playground for white men. Early in her career, she felt like an outsider in wildlife biology because of her background and the color of her skin.��Hoke, a marriage and family therapist, had traveled to Denver from Philadelphia for the event. She sat in the crowd and nodded along.

“Just because you come from Black America doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have access to these places,” Hoke said. “It was empowering to hear that she had the tenacity to make it the center of her life.”

After the panel ended, Hoke beelined for the autograph tent. She purchased three copies of Dr. Wynn-Grant’s memoir, Wild Life,��and then stood in line to meet her. When Dr. Wynn-Grant finally arrived, Hoke made the most of the experience: photos, conversation, hugs, and even tears. One book is for her mother, Hoke said, and the other is for her soon-to-be mother-in law.

Meeting Dr. Wynn-Grant was a highlight of the weekend, but so was walking around Civic Center Park and checking out the city. Hoke said that downtown Philadelphia lacks the access to outdoors that we take for granted in Colorado. And on her flight back home, she started checking out home prices in Denver. “You never know what the future holds,” she told me.

“I’m not a mountaineer or a backpacker,” she continued. “I walked away realizing the positive potential for how the outdoors can impact the people in my life.”

Winning a Golden Ticket

Jonah Grove is a huge fan of Diana Nyad.

When her employer, Price Waterhouse Cooper, told its employees that it had a limited number of tickets to the ���ϳԹ��� Festival to give away, and that hopeful attendees should write an essay about why they wanted to go, Grove focused hers on Nyad. “She’s a great entertainer,” Grove told me. “Every time I hear her talk I’m reminded that she did her swim at age 64. That’s inspiring.”

Grove won the tickets, and placed Nyad’s talk atop her to-do list. But what else was there to do? Grove checked out the schedule and picked out a handful of other events to hit: a screening of the film Wade into Water,��listening to author (and former ���ϳԹ��� staffer) Katie Arnold discuss her new book, Running Home. Grove could check out the food trucks, climbing competitions, and of course the music.

I met Grove on Saturday when she buzzed by my booth and filled out an online form to win a pair of Columbia running shoes. A few hours later we did a random drawing and she was a big winner. “I’ve never won anything!” she said when she claimed her footwear. Then, on Sunday, she returned to the booth to meet Nyad and get a photo snapped with her hero. Guess who took the pic? Yours truly—yet another skill I got to apply to my festival job.

I asked Grove what she spoke to Nyad about. “I got up there and didn’t know what to say—I think I asked her about how her day was going,” Grove told me. “I was too excited.”

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This past weekend I willed myself to watch , the new Netflix film about marathon swimmer Diana Nyad and her record-breaking 2013 swim from Cuba to Florida. Now, several days after that viewing, two scenes from the movie still flicker in my head when I shut my eyes.

In one, Diana Nyad (played by Anette Bening) lies in a hospital bed, her lips swollen from the seawater and her flesh burned by jellyfish tentacles, days after her third unsuccessful attempt at the crossing. Her coach and friend Bonnie Stoll (Jodie Foster) recounts the emotional horror of having watched Diana nearly die in the water, and Diana responds with a massive eye roll and a wave of her hand. In another scene, Diana, her eyes narrowed, berates her navigator John Bartlett (Rhys Ifans) after he warns that an approaching gale could make her fourth attempt at the Cuba to Florida swim a death trap. A jump cut then shows the crew clinging helplessly to their chase boat amid heaving seas as Diana fights through the whitecaps one stroke at a time. Eventually Bonnie must blow the rescue whistle to signal defeat in an effort to save everyone from a watery grave.

The fact that my brain continues to replay these scenes is a testament to the film’s quality—yes, Nyad is worth watching—and it’s also a rebuke to the baggage that I, admittedly, carried into my viewing. You see, I did not want to watch Nyad, and I especially did not want to like it.

I trace my preconceived distaste to three things, the first of which is this filled with exposition that for some reason Netflix circulated on X to promote Nyad (I suggest watching the ). The second is this , who examines the many tall tales that the real Diana Nyad has told over the years, and the strange community of swimming truthers who believe that some of her records are potentially fraudulent. And the third is, well, who Diana Nyad has become after her historic swim: she of and fame, queen of the oft-repeated mantra that you can accomplish any challenge, no matter the difficulty or prevalence of jellyfish, so long as you, ya know, don’t give up. I don’t know about you, but I fatigued on the motivational mumbo jumbo long ago.

I assumed Nyad would be just another shallow Hollywood hagiography—think in a Speedo—only one dressed up for the outdoorish crowd, and chock-full of inspirational cliche. I’m here to admit that my assumption was unfair. I was wrong.

That said, anyone hoping for an interrogation of Diana Nyad’s with the truth will be disappointed by Nyad. Instead, the film investigates the qualities and flaws that drive someone to repeatedly risk their own life and the lives of others in the pursuit of a personal goal. The portrait it paints isn’t always pretty. In Nyad,��Diana Nyad comes off as an egotistical jerk. But��ultimately, that’s what makes Nyad shine.

The film is the narrative feature debut for co-directors (and partners) Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin—yes, they��of Free Solo and��Meru fame. They use historic television clips to introduce Diana Nyad as an American swimming hero of seventies-era��Wide World of Sports. The film opens in 2010 and Diana, about to turn 60, appears rudderless, grasping onto her past glory and even the mythological root of her Greek surname (“the nymphs that swam in the lakes, rivers, and ocean—this is your destiny.”) The one constant in her life is Bonnie, her best friend and former girlfriend who is an enthusiastic Robin to her Batman. This relationship propels Nyad, and both Bening and Foster melt into their characters within the first few scenes.

Following her birthday, Diana reads a Mary Oliver poem and feels motivated to get back into the swimming pool after a 30-year hiatus. Swimming awakens her internal drive, and she commits herself to the one goal that eluded her during her career. In 1978 she attempted the 103-mile Cuba-to-Key-West swim, but dropped out at mile 70 after losing her course in rough seas. Now, Diana thinks she can do it at age 60 and she wants Bonnie to come along for the adventure. “The mind—this is what I was missing when I was younger,” she says enthusiastically.

And we’re off. The film ping-pongs between Los Angeles and Havana as Diana tries and fails and tries again at her big swim. And this is where Nyad makes its statement. You see, Diana’s undying motivation lays bare her many flaws. She is competitive and petty, self-righteous and vain. And as the DNFs pile up, Diana becomes a tyrant, bullying Bonnie and others to continue helping her chase the One Big Goal, no matter the risks. The film traces the roots of Diana’s maniacal drive back to her own history of abuse—she was sexually assaulted by a swim coach at age 14—and flashbacks capture the emotional horror that present-day Diana struggles to process during her marathon swims. In the water, Diana undergoes therapy to address her trauma. On land, she dishes out pain.

This emotional split provides a pointed critique of the Inspirational Industrial Complex that you and I are oh-so familiar with: those Ted Talks, corporate speeches, too-long Instagram captions telling us that, with the right mindset, we too could climb Everest or swim across the ocean. Outdoor culture overflows with these messages, and only every so often do we catch .��Nyad shows the darker side of the succeed-at-all-costs mentality through its portrait of Diana.

The film of course concludes with Diana finally completing the big swim and walking ashore in Key West in front of a massive crowd. As the credits roll, we see clips of the real Diana Nyad during her post-swim media blitz telling her story to throngs of adoring fans. To some, the message of Nyad is that we can accomplish our dreams if we simply adopt Diana’s undying spirit. But that’s not what I took��from the film. My read is that it’s probably better for everyone if we leave that mindset to the Diana Nyads of the world.

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This Memorial Day weekend marks 45 years of��, with more than 100 documentaries screening at the festival in Telluride, Colorado, from May 25 to 29. The 2023 festival is dedicated to the iconic late ski mountaineer��Hilaree Nelson, who died during her descent from 26,781-foot Manaslu on September 26, 2022. A longtime Telluride resident, Nelson appeared in various documentaries at Mountainfilm over the years, and guided programming as a guest director in 2021. At 1 P.M. on Sunday, May 28, the festival will host the world premiere of a documentary that captures one of Nelson’s last expeditions. ���ϳԹ��� is supporting Mountainfilm as its 2023 national media sponsor.

After three years of holding an online festival due to the pandemic, Mountainfilm will only be in-person this year. In addition to feature-length and short films, Coffee Talks, the Minds Moving Mountains Speaker Series, and DocTalks are on the schedule. You can purchase passes for the festival .

When Mountainfilm was founded in 1979, most of its programming focused on gravity-defying climbs. As word of the festival spread, the event grew to include a diverse range of athletes, activists, and artists. This year’s lineup exemplifies that tradition, celebrating the resilience of the human spirit.����

Here are five films we can’t wait to see this weekend:

Earthside

In the spring of 2022, Hilaree Nelson, Brette Harrington, Emily Harrington, and Christina Lustenberger flew north of the Arctic Circle with the goal of scoring first descents on Baffin Island. Navigating massive seracs and freezing temperatures, the group spent over a week skiing 1,000-meter couloirs and climbing more than 20,000 vertical feet as part of an expedition sponsored by the North Face. Earthside (40 min.) captures the highs and lows of that trip, as directors Kaki Orr and Robert Wassmer follow the team through tests of will and trust. The documentary is especially poignant in light of Nelson’s death just months after filming. The 49-year-old mother of two was a mentor to athletes of all genders, but particularly to women. Watching Nelson guide this all-women expedition is both heartbreaking and heartening, a reminder of all that she made possible.

Wild Life

When her husband Doug died in a kayaking accident in 2015, Kristine Tompkins was left to lead the couple’s conservation nonprofit alone—just as the organization was about to make the largest private land donation in history. Wild Life (93 min.), from Oscar-winning filmmakers Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, chronicles Tompkins’s dogged efforts to create national parks in Chile and Argentina, preserving the countries’ natural wonders for generations to come. The documentary is, as Stephanie Pearson wrote for our�� May/June issue, an “epic saga of love and loss,” revealing how Tompkins channeled her grief into protecting some 14.8 million acres. “I want people to realize that this film is not about Doug and Kristine,” Tompkins told ���ϳԹ���. “It’s the representation of hundreds of Chileans’ and Argentines’ work. Mother Nature is not winning this game. We are all on the losing team, and everybody needs to join the fight.”

Cowboy Poets

Since 1985, people have gathered in the high desert of Elko, Nevada, for the annual . For six days, crowds pack into small downtown theaters to hear stories about ranching, horses, and life in the rural west. In Cowboy Poets (92 min.), director Mike Day turns his lens toward these storytellers as they navigate an ever-changing landscape blighted by climate change, fossil fuel extraction, and political polarization. Through lyrical verse, the cowboy (and cowgirl) poets interrogate their region’s founding myths and contemplate a way forward, as drought and wildfires threaten to decimate their livelihoods. With lingering wide shots of torched pasture and mountainous expanses, Day records what has been lost and what’s at stake.

Patrol

On the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua sits a wildlife sanctuary teeming with jaguars, great green macaws, and howler monkeys. The 785,000-acre Indio Maíz Biological Reserve is home to the Rama and Afro-descendant Kriol peoples, who consider the area sacred. In Patrol (82 min.), directors Brad Allgood and Camilio De Castro Belli follow park rangers from both groups as they attempt to shield the land from illegal cattle ranchers. The film draws attention to the urgent issue of “conflict beef”—meat harvested from deadly attacks on Indigenous land. Demand for imported beef in the U.S. soared during the early days of the pandemic, and Nicaraguan settlers stole acreage to increase production, . The reserve is one of the most intact tracts of lowland forest left in Central America. As Patrol shows the Indigenous rangers teaming up with a conservationist and undercover journalists, the documentary illustrates how protecting ancestral lands is a moral and environmental imperative.

Mama Bears

As GOP-led state legislatures across the country attack the rights of trans children, thousands of mothers are taking a stand. Mama Bears (90 min.), directed by Daresha Kyi, follows some of the 32,000 movement members fighting for a better world. Many self-described “mama bears” grew up in conservative Christian households, where they were taught that being LGBTQ was a sin. But their faith in God is what propels their activism. “The Bible says some are born this way, and some are made this way. And my child is fearfully and wonderfully made. My child was born for a time such as this,” activist Kimberly Shappley says .

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