Skip to main content

Finding Adventure at the GoPro Mountain Games

Summer mountain getaways are without a doubt our favorite vacations. Add in a crowd of adrenaline junkies, world class athletic competitions, a nightly concert series, and huge gear village, and you’ve got the makings of a trip you’ll tell stories about for years to come. There’s only one place that puts all of these elements of adventure together seamlessly, and that is the GoPro Mountain Games in Vail, Colorado. We were on the ground (and in the air and water) this year to get a taste of the very best experiences Vail has to offer.
Mountain Games Slack Line

Related: 5 Best Mountain Town Adventures | Best Mountain Town Bars

Recommended Videos

Primarily, the Games are a celebration of all our favorite mountain sports; this year featured an enduro mountain biking race, world cup bouldering, rafting, kayaking and SUP events, and more. We were in town to get some instruction on how to better use our GoPro cameras in adventure settings, so we hit the water for a run down Gore Creek.
Mountain Games Kayaking

For serious paddlers, the class III rapids featured on the stretch of river around Vail Village are pretty trivial. However, for our novice skills, and the open top kayaks we were riding in they proved more than enough danger and excitement. Our guides fished us out of a couple dips in the river, and we paddled on. After our down river sprint, we took our GoPros off the kayak and helmet mounts to check the footage, and get a crash course in a recent acquisition, the Quik App. With a built in music library and smart editor, even a novice can put together a professional edit of their adventures in just a few minutes. It took us about five minutes to pull a few video segments from the river together and order them to tell a coherent story. Quik did the rest:

Gore Creek Kayaking

Of course, the Games is not all about high stakes, adrenaline fueled, extreme sports. After getting dried off and warmed up (Gore Creek was running at a frosty 44-degrees), we headed over to the Dock Dogs competition with famed photographer, Travis Burke, one of GoPro’s premier ambassadors. These high flying canines were the perfect subjects to show off the slow motion capture and burst shot capabilities. Shooting up to thirty photos a second, the Hero 4 Silver ($400) caught every highlight of the action as serious athletic shepherds, labs, and malinois took flight in front of the crowd. The slow motion capture – up to 120-frames-per-second at 720p resolution – helped catch every jump, catch, and splash. We’ll be taking one along for our big Pacific Northwest trip later this summer, so stay tuned for some tips and tricks as we start to perfect our video skills.
Mountain Games Dock Dogs

Whether you’re on the hunt for your next high altitude single track, looking to make your first splash on a SUP or kayak, or just want to take it all in, the Mountain Games are the capital of adventure sports every summer. If you missed it this time around, it’s time to get a jump start on planning your perfect GoPro fueled adventure next summer.

Day 2 Highlights | GoPro Mountain Games

Cover photo Courtesy of GoPro/Logan Robertson
Topics
Austin Parker
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Austin Parker is a former contributor at The Manual Parker is a powder skier and sport climber and is no stranger hauling…
The best true crime shows that you can binge now
From documentaries to drama series, these are the very best true crime shows.
Daisy Edgar Jones in Under the Banner of Heaven

Over the past 20 years, true crime has become one of the defining genres of our time. There are dozens of podcasts, movies, and especially TV series devoted to the topic, so much so that it can be hard to figure out which ones are actually worth your time.

True crime has become so popular that the best shows in this genre have even garnered awards attention, although more shows have been nominated than have actually won major awards.

Read more
7 incredible shows like Black Mirror to stream next
Watch these science fiction series next
Paul Giamatti in Black Mirror

Black Mirror started its life as a niche science fiction anthology show on Netflix, but the British series expanded its reach and popularity as the episodes started to blend into contemporary world issues more and more. It's no secret that the world we live in keeps getting scarier, whether that be due to the upheaval in politics or the uncertainty of artificial intelligence and climate change altering our world forever. Good TV's ability to mirror real life makes it culturally relevant, and it leaves fans craving even more of it.

With fans waiting patiently to find out if Black Mirror season 8 will be greenlit at Netflix, there are several alternatives that you can check out after finishing season 7. Not all of these series are as daring about social issues or crafted in the same way as Black Mirror, but all of them have the same sci-fi principles that make the storytelling unique. These are the best shows like Black Mirror to stream next.

Read more
One of the newest movies on Netflix is from an action movie master
Havoc is the ideal movie for anyone hankering for more John Wick.
Tom Hardy in Havoc

Not every movie on Netflix is worth your time, but the streaming service definitely makes plenty of movies that are worth seeking out. Havoc, which hit the streamer on Friday, is one such movie, and part of the reason it's worth seeking out is the extraordinary talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Directed by Gareth Edwards, the movie follows a detective who must track down a politician's son in the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong. As he climbs deeper and deeper into the criminal underworld, he begins to appreciate just how much corruption he's facing and kills a lot of people along the way.

Read more