Back to Lake Tahoe Summary Page...

Greg Stump Bio

Greg Stump's ski pioneering began at an early age when he joined a junior masters program at Pleasant Mountain Ski Area in Maine. In 1970 at age nine he won his first competition at Sugarloaf and his prowess in this PSIA style technique competition led him to freestyle, a discipline that took off at Pleasant Mountain in the seventies.

In 1978 Greg won the Junior National Championships at Copper Mountain, Colorado. His strengths were moguls and ballet which combined with aerials to fill out the competition. It was a family effort as one year Greg, Sister Kim, and brother Geoff all won their age groups at the Nationals. In 1979, Greg won the the North American Freestyle Championships at Edelweiss Valley in Ontario, becoming the first ever international amateur freestyle champion.

This was followed by two years on the professional freestyle circuit where he continued to score victories in bumps and ballet.

His freestyle prowess caught the eye of another ski pioneer, Ski magazine editor Doug Pfeiffer who introduced Greg to Harry Leonard who featured him on revolving ski decks at his nationwide ski shows. This led him to an introduction to ski film maker Dick Barrymore and he appeared in "Vagabond Skiers". This was Barrymore's last ski film and Stump's next appearance was in a Warren Miller film.

His work with these two ski film pioneers convinced Greg that he could make ski films and this is where he had his greatest impact.

Not content with displaying pretty skiers in Powder, his films combined offbeat skiing with rock sound tracks appealing to a new audience. In his first movie in 1983 Greg focused his cameras on snow boarders as well as well as skiers and his 100 college tour helped that sport grow.

Before Stump extreme skiing was known to only a handful of skiers who skied beyond the boundaries of ski areas and within ski area boundaries beyond the groomed runs. Extreme skiing appeared in each of his films but in 1988 "Blizzard of Aahhh's" considered by many to be the best ski film ever produced, brought Scot Schmidt, Glen Plake, and Mike Hattrup together on terrain that would terrify most skiers. They skied near-vertical chutes and dropped over improbable cliffs, all shot with great cinematic film angles. In his narration and sizzling soundtracks powered by English rock producer Trevor Horn's music, Stump set a new standard in ski films.

Each year he brought a new film with more extreme skiing in more spectacular settings. From Chamonix in France to remote Alaskan peaks his skiers and snow boarders challenged the slopes and the steeps. His use of the latest music from the likes of Seal, Iggy Pop, The Beastie Boys, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood added to the appeal of the younger set and his nationwide college tour filled auditoriums with skiers and non-skiers alike.

From "The Droids" in 1983 to "P-tex, Lies, and Duct Tape" in 1993 a film a year introduced a new generation to skiing as a way of life, a thrilling, captivating presentation of our sport. For bringing this exciting new life to skiing, in 1999 Greg Stump was honored by Skiing Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential people in skiing of all time, and named to the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in 2005.

However, skiing was not the only topic of Greg's film making. From the very start of his career to the present, Greg produced, filmed and directed hundreds of commercials and music videos for national and international clients like Swatch Watch, Coors, Adidas, Salomon, Chapstick, Wrigley's, United Airlines, Whistler Resort, Aspen Colorado, and in 2000 a Disney Super-Bowl commercial starring skateboard legend, Tony Hawk. Greg's music video and music documentary subjects include Willie Nelson, Seal, Kris Kristofferson, Merle Haggard, Neil Young, Ricki Lee Jones, Los Lonely Boys, Dinosaur Jr., and The Beach Boys.

Greg currently works out of his studio, "The Clockworks" near Jackson Hole, Wyoming and has homes in Jackson Hole, Whistler, B.C. and Maui, Hawaii.