The Adirondack quest. Jamie Kennard on Wright Peak with Algonquin Peak rising in the background. Photo: Doug Kennard
Over 12 years, brothers Jamie and Doug Kennard skied the Catskill 35 and the 46 Adirondack high peaks. Their film, Variable celebrates the region and shows us some serious moxy and pluck along the way.
We are here to discuss the ski film Variable. But before we land on that topic, we’ll digress for a few paragraphs. So, ski films. I suppose there’s a yin and yang to ski film season. The cycle goes round-n-round. Sometimes, breakout narrative arcs support breakout filmography. Sometimes, there are vanity projects searching for a narrative arc with some excellent videography. The narrative arc, without a doubt, is the key. Without it, we circle back, as one does with yin and yang, to vanity project. This brings us to the film Variable, which nails the narrative arc.
We skiers and riders know this term: Variable. Here’s what Merriam-Webster says of the word:
able or apt to vary : subject to variation or changes
variable winds
variable costs
b
: FICKLE, INCONSTANT
Backcountry ski tourists know variable as inconsistent conditions, often tipping toward the negative side of descriptors. As in, the snow can grab skis and tips and make an otherwise competent skier look helter-skelter. So, fickle applies here. Variable conditions are when, at the end of a run, you may fist bump your partner, but not in the way of stoke and smiles and effortlessly making Ss down a powder run. No. A fist bump after a truly variable run, and a gnarly one at that, with roots, rocks, and thin branches spring-loaded to thwap you in the face, is a battle-worn bump of a fist bump.
At Variable‘s conclusion, brothers Jamie and Doug Kennard toast one another with small bottles of semi-shaken champagne. The two brothers joke and verbally joust. They click bottles together. Theirs is a special bond, and I choked up as the credits rolled.
1/2 of the Variable team—Doug Lennard. Photo: Jamie Kennard
The other 1/2: Jamie Kennard. Photo: Jamie Kennard
With the Catskill 35 ski project closed out, the Kennards needed more. They sought adventure, quiet, self-reliance, soft winter light, and a quest. These are ski tourers, after all. This is where Variable leads us: on the Kennard’s quest to ski all 46 of the Adirondack’s high peaks. No spoiler alert here, the brothers accomplished the feat this past March with a final climb and ski of Mount Colden at 4,714 feet. There’s also no spoiling the downright variableness of the variable. Jamie and Doug would have had, and did, in fact, have, scores of good reasons not to complete the project. Low snow. Too much snow. Rain events. Busy lives. The least of which was the sometimes barely discernible ski runs the two hop-scotched and scratched down. The brothers seem trustworthy and earnest. But, under no circumstances would I purchase their used skis.
If ski touring were the film’s focus, the viewing would be a worthy outing. Yet, the filmmakers take us deeper. Variable explores something we all know—that touring sustains many of us. We’d toil in darkness without it, even with a perfectly fine headlamp.
Down low on Grace Peak, Doug Kennard takes the path less traveled. Photo: Jamie Kennard
Doug Kennard descends Grace Peak in the Adirondacks. Turn making from just above treeline and open slopes down into less hospitable terrain. Photo: Jamie Kennard
The winter of 2015 began the Kennard’s Adirondack high peaks ski project. A decade later, it was complete. However, in 2019, Jamie’s wife Tracy was diagnosed with Cancer. For two years, Jamie became her caregiver. Tracy died in 2021. Although Variable doesn’t ruminate on Tracy’s illness for long, we are exposed enough to their life together to understand the depth of his grieving. They had been high school sweethearts.
The film weaves in some excellent history, too. We hear from Ron Konowitz, the first person to ski all 46 Adirondack high peaks, and a cast of others who need this region and its scrappy skiing to be whole.
Perseverance resonates throughout Variable. It is, in fact, the film’s glue. Despite Jamie’s loss, he toils on and finds beauty and truth in his Adirondack goal. He thrives. As far as the skiing, I’m unsure if I’ve ever seen burlier schussing and turns. Variable takes us about as far away from what we would normally consider big mountain terrain, often the centerpiece of ski/riding films, and drops us in dense hardwood and conifer forests where only true believers see the way. The Kennards harnessed the vision and show us the path down.
