The Step it Up series brought to Whistler a new bread of event bringing
guest speakers into a bar environment to educate the young hip and
cool crowd of Whistler about different themes relating to the protection
of our environment including the wellness of our own body, mind
and spirit.
Like
it’s previous events, Hilltrip’s goal with the Step it Up series
was to fight global warming. With an event every month from
November
2006 to April 2007, the series included six different educational
sessions about sustainability with a global warming twist. Through
the whole series, Hilltrip was able to raise $550 to benefit the
Snowrider Project of Surfrider Vancouver and a lot of people learned
about ways to become a better steward of the environment and themselves.
Starting with a
Sustainable Mountains Session in
November , Step it Up no1 sent a strong message to the snow sport
industry by having Jonaven Moore, a renown professional snowboarder,
do a presentation on global warming and how negative PR is affecting
our understanding of the issue, well timed after Tyler Bradley,
the environmental chemist behind the creation of the first environmentally
friendly ski wax in the world; Hillbilly Wax-Works & Ethica Enviro-Wax
who had a satirical look at the state of the snow sport industry
itself.
Step
it Up no2 being close to Christmas, Hilltrip thought educating people
about how making informed choices during the holiday season would
help them reduce their environmental footprint and be good for their
own body environment and organized a
Sustainable Food Session.
The session covered the concepts of SLOW food with Diana Rochon,
RAW food with Sarinda Hoilett, SUPER food with Randall Carpenter
and there was a slide show to give ideas to people on how they can
green their holidays.
If you are interested you learn about
how
you can GREEN Christmas Holiday click here >>
For
the third Step it Up, we decided to do something a bit different
than the usual sustainable environment type event by having an
Awakening
Session and introduce a spiritual approach to sustainability.
We believe awareness and consciousness can play a big role in improving
someone’s life and the world. For the occasion, we had Kelly Oswald
of The Oracle, Tina James of World Yoga Within and Robbie Dagg &
Friends with OM MANI PADME HUM.
The fourth session was done in conjunction with Surfrider Vancouver.
The theme was
Sustainable Watershed and Pina Belperio
of Whistler Water Watch and June Van Der Star of Surfrider did great
presentations followed by a Sea to Summit, a video where snowboarders,
skateboarder, and surfers are talking about the entire hydrological
cycle and how it relates to their day to day life. Following the
session, we had the Enviro-Mental Showdown Party following the qualifier
of the Showcase Showdown, an annual snowboard competition.
The
fifth one was a
Sustainable Energy Session and
we had Sarah Valentine giving a few tips on how we can reduce our
energy consumption easily and than Hilltrip went all out and presented
15 documentaries about energy and climate change over 2 days as
part of the
Sierra Club Energy Film Festival.
You can read more about the Energy Film Festive by clicking here
>>
As a way to end the series, Hilltrip teamed up with a bunch of local
artists to present an
Expression Session on
Earth
Day, April 22nd, and the last day of the World Ski and
Snowboard Festival (WSSF) this year. Kostaman & The Vibrations opened
at 7pm with a few reggae songs, Angie Nolan and MollyFi followed
with poems and spoken words, Daniel Poisson, Chris Dyer, Olivier
Roy, Jon Parris and Stan Matwychcuk had art pieces on display, Chili
Thom & Feet Banks came to show their short film “High in the Mountain”,
Animal Nation did a few raps, and Rainbo performed a hula hoops
go-go set to the sound of DJ Parris. During the evening we also had the OxyMoron Martini, a heathy martini containin
FrequenSea.
This last Step it Up event
was also the launch of
Green.Colonies.com in Whistler! It is also during that event that the winner for the Surf trip, the
Option Snowboard, the SPY goggle and the O’Neill goodies were draw.
There was so much going on, it was a great way to close the festival and the series in beauty.
Thanks
to
Whistler Brewing Company, Clif Bar, O’Neill, Deep Snow
and Surf Experience, Option Snowboards and Spy for sponsoring
the Step it Up series,
Maxx Fish Bar & Lounge for
letting us host the series,
Surfrider Vancouver
for setting an information table at each event, the speakers and
artists for their performances and inspiration as well as all the
people that have helped make this series of event happen…Nadia Cote,
Marie-Lou, Giselle, Haley, Elexa, Sarah, Andrew, Adrian and all
of those who came.
For more information on Hilltrip, visit
www.hilltrip.comCheck out my gallery to see pictures from each Step it Up event!
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