Longtime Breckenridge local Lee Lucas is the Warren Miller of Colorado ski films. He’s a surfer at heart who learned to ski, and then he learned to ski with a camera.
“It was just a bunch of people skiing and having fun,” the Texas native says of his formative years in Breck.
But Lucas wasn’t trying to be Warren Miller. He was right there next to him.
“He featured me and his son helicopter skiing in Canada,” Lucas remembers. “That was ’74 it was shot, aired in ’75 for his feature-length movie that year (“There Comes A Time”). The two of us became very good friends.”
The Depot years
Lucas first came to Summit County in 1969, and if you were here in the ‘70s or ‘80s he probably filmed you.
“We advertised what run we’d be (filming) on and boy, howdy, everybody loved it,” Lucas says. “I’d have all kinds of crazy people coming down that run.”
Time moved slower back then. Lucas would ship his super-8 film to a processing facility on the Front Range, and a week later the newest batch of footage would arrive for screenings at The Depot, a long-gone basement bar on Ski Hill Road.
“I went in there and said, ‘How about showing ski movies?’” Lucas recalls from his pitch to The Depot owner. “He said, ‘Hell yes!’ It became the place to go.”
Unseen footage
Lucas recently sent four boxes of old ski film to Breckenridge History for a new project, “Breckenridge Rewind.” It showcases classic Breck, on and off the snow, from cross-country skiing and the Ullr Fest parade to parties, pub crawls and weddings.
Some of the footage has never been seen.
“It’s got shots of me going down the alpine slide holding onto the camera,” Lucas says. “Back then it wasn’t just a camera. You got the battery belt, you got the recorder, and you’ve got the camera, and you’ve got to hold the thing at full speed while you’re going down the alpine slide. That was fun. I thought I was going to die.”
Other footage in “Breckenridge Rewind” is Colorado classic, like the mini-feature Lucas made on speed skier CJ Mueller for the 1992 Winter Olympics.
“It’s called ‘Speed, Powder and Rock’n’Roll,’ and it’s got him speed skiing,” Lucas says. “It’s got one of his friends falling at 130 miles an hour.”
Movie night at The Depot was just the beginning. Lucas owned a camera store on Main Street and launched ZLTV, a local cable channel, where he’d featured taped footage he shot earlier the same day. This soon evolved into Rocky Mountain Lift Ticket, a nationally syndicated show with an estimated 5 million viewers at its peak.
These days Lucas spends most of his time in the Florida Keys on a boat, sometime fishing with charter clients, but more often fishing for fun.
On Saturday, Aug. 16 he returns to Breckenridge for the world premiere of “Breckenridge Rewind,” showing at the Riverwalk Center for opening weekend of the Breckenridge International Festival of Arts.
CJ Mueller gives the introduction. Lucas gives a post-screening Q&A. Tickets are on sale.