Basecamp podcast: Skiing legend Glen Plake talks legacy and the enduring appeal of ‘Blizzard'”

With his signature hairstyle, Glen Plake (center) is an enduring icon of the freeskiing movement. (Handout Photo)

Glen Plake skyrocketed to skiing stardom with his appearance in Greg Stump’s “Blizzard of Aahhh’s,” the 1988 film widely considered to be the benchmark of extreme skiing movies. With his trademark mohawk in tow, Plake, Scot Schmidt and Mike Hattrup tore up Chamonix, France, and gave American audiences a taste of what skiing was like overseas. 

In the three decades since, Plake, 59, has remained one of skiing’s most recognizable — and popular — ambassadors. Inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2010, Plake and his wife, Kimberly (whom he met during a trade show at Stratton Mountain in Vermont) continue to seek new ways to connect with other skiers across the country. 

Plake recently was a guest on the New England Ski Journal Basecamp podcast, presented by Country Ski and Sport. You can listen to the interview, in its entirely, below, as well as dozens of other Basecamp episodes, at www.skijournal.com/podcast. 

Highlights from this edition of the Basecamp podcast: 

On if he recognizes the brash, young kid from the past. 

Plake: I think I’m trying to be that kid more and more. I think I’m still very much the same exact individual with the same desires and the same drive and same confusion in life. It’s just there are two things that are gone; I don’t do drugs and I don’t do any alcohol. That’s it. Those are the only two things that have changed. It’s probably why I am alive and it’s probably why I still have my wife and I still have the ability to be that same person that I was in the movies. 

On the lasting impact of “Blizzard” all these years later:

Plake: I’m not exaggerating when I say this — this isn’t just a number I’m throwing out — but at least 25 or 30 times this year, I had little kids that were probably 7 or 8 years old come up to me and be like, ‘I watched ‘Blizzard’ today.’ Or the dad would say, ‘We watched ‘Blizzard’ this morning before we went skiing.’ How can you not be thrilled about being something that’s just good, clean fun like that? Maybe it stirs some people to think a different way or inspires them to ski a different way. I used to laugh when I thought I’d gone through two generations. Now there’s no doubt about it, I’m on third and maybe even fourth generation.

Listen:

Check out the entire Basecamp library, at skijournal.com/podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple, Spotify and Amazon.