TORREY, Utah — This week's "Max Tracks" takes me to an event that might sound a bit snooty at first – a film festival. But trust me, once you see it, you'll realize it's anything but.
I intended to stay in my reserved campsite on Boulder Mountain, but my camp trailer wasn't cooperating, so I booked a room in Torrey and headed down.
Boulder Mountain reveals new views and experiences every time I drive highway 12. It's a place worth returning to.
Torrey and Capitol Reef National Park sit under the mountains' northern and eastern slopes.
The town of Boulder sits on the southern slope, with the Burr Trail spurring east and highway 12 continuing over the nail-biting spine called Hell's Backbone, where cliffs drop off both sides of the two-lane. There's a reward at the end of the spooky section of highway. Calf Creek Falls is one of Utah's premier hikes, and the town of Escalante is just a little ways further.
There's so much, it's easy to forget Boulder Mountain, North America's highest timbered plateau. We're used to peaks with rocky spires pointing jutting into the sky, but Boulder Mountain is too big for that. Once you get to eleven thousand feet in elevation...you are on a 70 square mile plot of land in the sky. So rather than marveling at the peak from below...you marvel at what you can see from the top.
The views are unparalleled. I went to film the sunrise on Saturday morning at Homestead Viewpoint. On a clear day, you can see a couple of hundred miles across Southeastern Utah's canyon country. On that day the view was obscured by smoke wafting up from the White Sage Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.
(A confession...I lost my favorite camera at the viewpoint. How? I don't know. I returned to look for it when I realized, but I had been scrambling all over the place to get good angles. Bottom line: I lose things, and I want you all to know just because I love to travel doesn't mean I always do a good job of it, and none of us should pretend we're perfect!)
That said, the Bicknell International Film Festival salvaged my trip. After two big disappointments (trailer and camera), I was really happy with the weekend because of the people I met and their goofy ritual I got to experience.
The Bicknell International Film Festival, or "BIFF" as it's affectionately known, has been running for the past 26 years.
"BIFF is meant to be a bit of a spoof on serious film festivals," explained festival organizer Don Gomes, whose name you might recognize from public radio announcing on KCPW in Salt Lake years ago.
The focus of BIFF is 'B' movies, and the "International" in the title seems only to apply to the fact that some of the crowd are visiting from elsewhere.
This year, They celebrated the King of Rock and Roll, who could legitimately claim the title of the King of 'B' movies...Elvis Presley.
On Friday night, the crowd suffered through the beyond cringeworthy "Stay Away, Joe," where Elvis plays a Native American rodeo rider who sneaks off to make out with every woman in town. They all have boyfriends except for the 18 year old daughter of an old flame. He even made out with his happily engaged stepsister. . . "You did a pretty good job of picking the worst Elvis movie," one attendee of a Saturday morning panel discussion said.
The panel discussion included an author, a professor, and 'one of the leading experts on Elvis in Piute County,' Kevin Holdsworth. "Don was looking for somebody who was into Elvis, and I sent him a picture of the shrine in my office to Elvis," Holdsworth told me, revealing the depth of his admiration for the King.
As the sun set, the theater filled up again for a screening of the (kind-of) classic "King Creole."
Honestly, even the best Elvis movie is pretty silly, but his presence is charming. The audience, a mix of locals and visitors, cheered as the movie started. When I ask Holdsworth why he loves Elvis so much, his answer is simple: "I think I want to be Elvis."
Young Elvis, he means. Handsome, talented, with the whole world at his feet.
But really, Kevin and the rest of us have the whole world at our feet when we stand on Boulder Mountain, or Kings Peak, or any of the thousand places that make our home a place that's perfect to make tracks, which, of course, is my favorite thing to do.
