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Like a Reese's Peanut Butter cup, Shane mixed his own combination of disparate elements, base jumping and skiing, to open up new lines of possibility on the biggest mountains in the world. For Shane, Wingsuit flying is his latest passion. Whatever mountain sport breaks big next, it's likely Shane McConkey's already mastered it. The Ski Channel spoke to the wily veteran from his home in Squaw Valley.
Q: So Shane. what's been up lately?
A: I'm getting really into wing suit flying now, that's my probably my biggest hobby, passion. Why not go flying off this cliff wearing a wing suit? Yank your skis off and then just fly away into the sunset wearing your wing suit. You spread your arms out, they become your wings and you just, you just turn. You just look and tilt your shoulders to which way you want to go and you just do it. You're not flying a contraption or something else with a handle or anything, you're flying your own body and it feels just like a bird. It's just amazing.
Q: Super cool! Ever had any close calls?
A: Made a bad decision one time and had a wall strike. Bounced down the wall a few times, had to get rescued. That was in Canada, um, off a cliff near Vancouver, that's about all you're gonna get. I got dip shit points, pretty much.
Q: You get nothing but cool points from us. Hey, what about the glorious return of Saucer Boy in Matchstick's Claim?
A: Saucer Boy's a pretty weird guy, we haven't seen him for a long time. I think he pretty much didn't want to come back, at all. I think he was sick of being saucer boy. He's kind of a dork, yeah he kind of really thinks highly of himself, and uh, got a bit of a drinking problem. Ski movies are all about entertaining people, yeah you got to be rad, you got to throw the biggest stuff you got to be stylie, but it's also about entertaining people, cause people want to come watch the weird stuff just as well as the rad stuff.
Q: No doubt, all hail the weird stuff! So what's your favorite ski movie of all time?
A: I plugged into the VCR, the Blizzard of Aahhh's, back in 1988, that's a Greg Stump film. I like thousands and thousands of other people my age got sucked in, hook, line and sinker to, I guess, the sensationalism in that movie and that was it for me. I realized that, whether it was true or not, I realized that there was another way to become a successful professional skier other than racing. Now-a-days when someone talks about style, they're talking about, usually they're talkin' about their style in the air. I grew up before the park skiing movement, but back when I was watching ski movies as a kid the style that I wanted, that I really wanted, that I wanted to ski like, was the actual skiing style, how someone was skiing down the hill, what position they were in. And I really dug the style and the position that Scott Schmidt had, but I also, you know, those Stump films did a great job of documenting the personality and the style in general of the person and Plake, you know, he was the bad boy, and he got people fired up. People either love him or hate him. I watched those movies until the tape was worn out and then I went out and tried to go bigger than those guys.
Q: No need for the old, worn out VHS, Blizzard of Aahhh's is now showing where?
A: Hey how's it goin? This is Shane McConkey and you're watching The Ski Channel.
Q: That's right. The Blizzard of Aahhh's is coming to The Ski Channel on January 25th! Thank's Shane!
A: I'm hittin' the stop.
