Binge-worthy films bring adventure to winter nights

A once-prolific climber goes “toe to toe with his granite foe” in Yosemite. A champion snowboarder and new mom strives to balance her pursuits. Three friends unite on a drug-fueled quest to contact Mount Shasta’s resident aliens.

These stories and more come to life in new films that will help the adventure-hungry to pass long winter nights.

A golden age of outdoor films began when climbing superstars Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson took viewers up El Capitan with “The Dawn Wall” in 2017. The world watched with terrified awe when Alex Honnold followed suit up Yosemite’s granite giant, without a rope, in “Free Solo” the next year.

Those films made Caldwell and Honnold household names and proved the appeal of well-made outdoor sports movies. They also inspired filmmakers to share stories of adventurers besides Caldwell and Honnold, popular as they are.

Among these worthy athletes is John “Verm” Sherman in “Old Man Lightning.” Sherman was once king of the California bouldering scene, but those days are long gone by the time the film begins. Verm, 57, wants another shot at glory, and sets his sights on the most famous boulder problem in the world.

That would be Yosemite’s Midnight Lightning, which Sherman climbed 25 years and, he admits, about 25,000 beers ago. Verm dedicates himself to a midlife comeback and trains furiously for six months to meet the challenge.

Midnight Lightning, with a V8 rating reflecting world-class difficulty, proves a worthy adversary. When the boulder repels Verm dozens of times, that only increases his motivation.

“Any good title fight goes the distance. I get the feeling this one’s going to also,” Sherman declared.

“Old Man Lightning” delivers laughs and a healthy perspective about aging that’s rarely expressed in sports media. Banff World Tour is distributing the film with multiple dates in California and Nevada this year.

“Butterfly in a Blizzard” tells a very different story about snowboarder Kimmy Fasani of Mammoth Lakes. Fasani started winning national championships in her teens, landed historic double-backflips and generally shredded the snowboarding scene for years. Then she married professional skier Chris Benchetler and decided to level up.

“I knew I wanted to start a family and I had no intention of slowing down,” Fasani said.

Fasani made a rare transition from elite athlete to elite athlete/mom, waking multiple times per night to feed her son before heading out to carve powder. Soon the family has two young sons, but then Fasani discovers she has an aggressive breast cancer.

“The control that I thought I had, it was yanked out from underneath my feet,” she said “Vulnerability causes transformation.

I just don’t know who it’s turning me into.”

“Butterfly in a Blizzard” tells “the biggest story never told” about the miracle of motherhood with enough snowboarding action to make it fun to watch. The film is streaming on YouTube, Amazon Prime and Apple TV.

For a totally different vibe, “The Lemurian Candidate” takes its audience on a fictional buddy trip on the flanks of Mount Shasta.

Legends surround California’s famed volcano, one of them suggesting that alien Lemurians inhabit a city called Telos hidden within the mountain. Jesse is determined to find them, and he gives his once-close friends Tom and Stan enough psychedelics to pull them into his quest.

Think “Cheech and Chong” plus “The Blair Witch Project” plus “Aliens” and you’ll get the picture. “The Lemurian Candidate” aims for comedy more than outdoor adventure and some will laugh at these three stoners.

Others may enjoy the unusual setting of Mount Shasta. The film has been screening in California, Oregon and Nevada.

While it’s nice to see some outdoor movies without the world’s most famous climbers, Caldwell and Honnold team up for another enjoyable film. In “The Devil’s Climb,” the superstars who once climbed The Nose of El Capitan together in less than two hours set their sights on an even more difficult objective.

These close friends aim for the first one-day ascent of five summits on the Devils Thumb massif in Alaska. Fewer than 50 have achieved even the remote main summit of 9,077 feet. Just to make things interesting, they ride their bikes (from Colorado), sail and hike about 2,600 miles to get there.

While their respective El Cap movies preserve their youth in the public’s mind, both have aged in the last decade. Caldwell, in particular, strives to overcome an Achilles injury. Breathtaking cinematography captures a monumental challenge. Climbers and non-climbers alike will enjoy this exhilarating story.

“The Devil’s Climb” is streaming on the Disney Channel.

If you enjoy these films this winter, make sure to get outdoors yourself once spring arrives.

Matt Johanson enjoys hiking, climbing, skiing and writing about the outdoors. His books include “Yosemite Epics,” “Yosemite Adventures” and “California Summits.” He can be reached at matt.johanson@sbcglobal.net.