On two nights in late October, the Daylodge parking lot at Alyeska Resort stops being a place for cars to sit and becomes, briefly, a movie theater. Challenge Alaska's annual drive-in movie night returns to Girdwood with a big screen rigged up in the lot off Arlberg Avenue, two showings each night, and an audience that watches from the driver's seat, the tailgate, or the hood of a truck. Admission is priced per vehicle, which means a carload of friends pays what one person would at a conventional theater.
The format is simple and a little strange, which is part of the appeal. At 7 p.m. each night, the screen carries the latest ski and snowboard film from Teton Gravity Research, the production company that has been making mountain films for three decades. At 10 p.m., the program shifts to the Best of Northern Aspects Film Festival, a compilation of standout shorts from an Alaska festival devoted to stories made by Alaskans, about Alaskans, in Alaskan mountains. Guests who want the whole evening can buy a discounted combo ticket for both screenings.
Food is set up in the Daylodge Loop, and there is a beer garden. The rules are the kind that only make sense at a drive-in in a ski resort parking lot: vehicles must have a working FM radio, because the film's audio is broadcast over a radio frequency rather than through speakers. Trucks, vans, and taller vehicles, including anything with a rooftop box or a Sprinter-style van, get directed to the back rows so they do not block the view. Pull-behind trailers and motorhomes are not allowed. Open flames are prohibited. Dogs are welcome on a leash. And because this is a mountain town in fall, the whole thing is weather dependent; high winds can cancel it, and tickets are non-refundable unless Challenge Alaska calls it off.
The event is a fundraiser, and the cause is the reason it exists. Challenge Alaska is a nonprofit founded in 1980 that runs an adaptive ski and snowboard school, with offices in Anchorage and Girdwood, and its mission is to improve the lives of people with disabilities, their families, and the wider community through adaptive sports, therapeutic recreation, and education. Proceeds from the film nights support that school. The pairing with Teton Gravity Research is not as arbitrary as it might first appear: TGR itself began in 1995, when Steve Jones, Todd Jones, and Dirk Collins pooled money they had earned as commercial fishermen and heli-ski guides to buy camera equipment, later joined by longtime friend Corey Gavitt. The company's own origin story runs through Alaska's fishing economy, so a fundraiser in a Girdwood parking lot is, in a roundabout way, a return to the source.
The second half of the bill is newer. Northern Aspects Film Festival describes itself as a festival for Alaska locals, made by Alaskans, skied by Alaskans, and showcased by Alaskans, and it was named in Anchorage in November 2022. Its organizers have pledged to run it for a minimum of five years and frame it around community rather than competition, with values that include inclusivity, respect for other mountain user groups, and the belief that everyone who wants to be in the mountains belongs there. The festival accepts every style of ski film, from powder meadow-skipping to animation to monoskiing corn, and defines "Alaskan" broadly, as anyone who feels a special affinity for the lands here and has spent time building a relationship with the place and its people. The Best of Northern Aspects program condenses that into a single screening.
What the evening amounts to is a fall gathering in a town that spends much of the year defined by snow. Girdwood sits at the end of Turnagain Arm in the Chugach Mountains, about forty minutes from Anchorage, and late October is the shoulder season, after the summer crowds and before the lifts start turning. The drive-in gives people a reason to come up the road anyway, to sit in a dark parking lot with the engine off and the radio on, watching skiers throw themselves down mountains in places most of the audience will never stand. Alyeska Resort is also offering rooms for anyone who wants to make a night of it rather than drive back down the highway afterward.
For anyone interested in sponsoring, Challenge Alaska takes inquiries at [email protected]. Otherwise the instructions are straightforward: bring a car with a radio, arrive early if you want a good spot, and dress for whatever the weather decides to do.