From helicopters to hot air balloons, Gary Nate reflects on his career filming for Warren Miller

Filming skiers jumping out of hot air balloons for Warren Miller films was not a career option for Gary Nate.

Not at first.

Nate was to be a running back for the University of Utah, get an education on a full-ride scholarship, graduate and find a job, preferably something with a suit-and-tie dress code.

But that’s not what happened.

After a year of playing football for the U of U, Nate received an injury that took him out of the sport.

“That was one of my first grade lessons in life,” Nate said. “I was doing really great and thought I really had a career in football, then I got injured. And I went back to see about the scholarship and they were like, ‘Gary who?'”

To pay for his education, Nate worked on railroads as a recruiter for Hill Air Force Base and as a cost analyst for brief period of time but left because “it was just boring,” Nate said.

But no matter where Nate went, he said he always brought his skis with him in case there was a chance he could ski on the weekends.

“The more I skied, the more I thought ‘How can I ski more? How can I know this freedom?’ And the camera is the thing that really let me pursue it,” he said.

In 1973, Nate said he made a deal with Warren Miller he couldn’t refuse.

Through his cousin, who had been in Warren Miller films and was on the Olympic ski team, Nate pitched his film “Skiers to Match the Mountains.”

“I’d set up here in Utah on the perfect powder day and I’d shot some footage,” Nate said. “If he didn’t like it, he didn’t have to pay me.”

But that deal only lasted a year or two, he said. In 1974, Nate became a full-time videographer for the Warren Miller films.

“It just mushroomed into what I ended up doing as a career,” he said.

Nate said his career led him to film for John Denver specials, the Osmonds and bank commercials, but mostly he filmed for Miller.

Which wasn’t always safe, he said.

“Warren used to always say, ‘Guess who’s at the bottom of the avalanche path?'” Nate said. “And that’s very scary. You have to be very careful and you have to be very calculating where you position yourself, especially in big mountains, because the avalanches are deadly. If you get into a major avalanche, you don’t have a prayer.”

But the risks didn’t stop Nate, nor did it stop the skiers and snowboarders performing the stunts.

Despite receiving less pay than they do now, Nate filmed skiers like Frank Bare during front layouts out of trams at Snowbird.

Nate even filmed Tom Leavitt and a few others even jumping off the skids of a helicopter at Brighton Head.

“We were doing about 30 knots and they did about 100-feet trajectory and hit the powder and skied away,” Nate said. “That was a very interesting stunt.”

Beside witnessing the evolution of stunts, Nate also captured the evolution of the ski and snowboard industry.

While shooting a film of Tom Sims, founder of SIMS skateboards and snowboards, competing in a competition between snowboarding and skiing competition at Cody Bowl, Nate noticed Leavitt handing a helicopter pilot $100 bills.

“When he got to $1,500, he said, ‘pile in,'” Nate said. “So we piled in and went a couple canyons over and shot what I consider some really what I consider real bona fide snowboarding. From there, it just mushroomed.”

Throughout Nate’s career, it took some time to convince his father what he was doing was worthwhile.

“I called my dad one time and I said, ‘Dad, dad, I’m up here in Alaska. I’m with nine gold medal winners in the Olympics and the governor of Alaska and we’re all going to Homer to go fishing,'” he said. “And he goes, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, but are they paying you?’ And I said, ‘Yeah they’re paying me.’ And he said, ‘I want to see the check.'”

But Nate said that his father acknowledged on his death bed that Nate had chosen the right career.

“He called me and said, ‘Gary I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you,'” Nate said. “‘You and Warren Miller have brought more happiness and enjoyment into the world than Walt Disney.'”

Though Nate no longer films for Warren Miller films, he does promote the films, including this year’s “Chasing Shadows.” This year, the showings are at Mt. Logan Middle School Nov. 12-14 at 7:30 p.m. with an additional matinee on Saturday at 3 p.m.

“I can’t think of anything else I would have rather done with my life than what I’ve done with it,” Nate said.

— katie.l.lambert26@gmail.com
@klamb92