WED, 10/8
Tina Basich
The first women to cross Antarctica tell their tale.
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Tina Basich, one of the world's first professional female snowboarders, chronicles her pioneering life in Pretty Good for a Girl: The Autobiography of a Snowboarding Pioneer. Basich, whose unconventional family once lived in a tepee on the front lawn, became a pro boarder at seventeen "because it was a new sport, and there were no prerequisites about what kind of person you had to be." Eventually, she became the first pro to execute the "backside 720" trick, which involves rotating 720 degrees while performing a flip and riding backward upon landing. She earned first place in the 1998 ESPN X Games with that stunt and later broke her leg attempting the trick for a magazine photo shoot. "Coming back from an injury, you don't feel like Superwoman anymore," she observes.
The fourteen-year pro, who helped found Boarding for Breast Cancer and who is slated to host an action TV show featuring girls competing in extreme sports, notes that her immediate goals "aren't categorized in tricks."
Basich will give a slide show presentation and sign her book at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the LoDo Tattered Cover Book Store, 1628 16th Street. Call 303-436-1070. -- DeNesha Tellis
Elk Fest can be seen, herd
SAT, 10/4
It's easy to understand why folks would head to Elk Fest; after all, the Elktones Band will be there! So will vendors selling elk-antler lamps and elk cuisine and other elk by-products, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow in Bond Park, U.S. 36 and Community Drive in Estes Park. Other highlights include an archery contest and sessions on Native American music and storytelling with Danny Many Horses Rael.
To really see the elk, though, you'll need to leave the human herd and hop on a habitat bus tour. For more information on mingling with the elk and their ilk, bugle the Town of Estes Park special events office at 1-970-586-6104. -- Ernie Tucker
Dream Catchers
FRI, 10/3
When Ann Bancroft was a young Minnesotan reading about Sir Ernest Shackleton's heroic attempt to cross Antarctica, she had no idea that half a world away, little Norwegian Liv Arnesen was engrossed in the same book. In 1998, the two women met as teachers, both harboring a longtime dream of negotiating the frozen continent, with one addition: Now they wanted to bring along millions of schoolchildren. In November 2000, Bancroft and Arneson embarked on a 1,700-mile, three-month ski trek across the Antarctic, battling freezing snow, ice storms and 70-degree-below-zero wind chills while communicating with classrooms in 150 countries by satellite phone and the Internet. Thus the two women -- the first in history to traverse Antarctica's landmass -- became an inspiration to children around the globe.
Bancroft and Arneson chronicled their journey in a book titled No Horizon Is So Far. The authors will be at the American Mountaineering Center, 710 10th Street in Golden, at 10 a.m. today for a children's presentation and at 7:30 p.m. for a discussion and book signing. Admission is free. Call 303-279-3080 or visit www.cmc.org for details. -- Kity Ironton
