Ben Clark (mountaineer)
Ben Clark (born 1979) is a mountaineer and native of Clarksville, Tennessee, though he resides in Telluride, Colorado. He starting rock climbing in his late teens and progressed to larger, more challenging mountains in his early twenties, eventually spending 10 years pioneering alpine and ski mountaineering routes in the Nepali and Tibetan Himalayas. On May 22, 2003, at the age of 23, Ben became the second youngest American to summit Mount Everest, via the North-Northeast Ridge Route.
Clark's 2003 expedition to Mount Everest was captured by filmmaker and friend, Jon Miller, and made into a documentary written and directed by Ben Clark and titled, Everest: The Other Side. The film premiered on Dish Network Pay-Per-View in May 2005. Additional footage that did not make it into the final product was released in a series of video podcasts, entitled The Rest of Everest. 'The Rest of Everest' received positive reviews from critics and viewers alike. Within Apple Computer's iTunes Store, the video podcast garnered comments including "the best and most complete documentary on Everest," "totally fascinating" and "the jewel of web content creation for 2006." That December, iTunes editors declared The Rest of Everest as a "Best of 2006" podcast, beginning a run of nominations and awards that lasted 4 years.
Following the ascent of Everest and premiere of Everest: The Other Side, Clark moved to Telluride, Colorado where he became host of Plum TV's Fresh Tracks and committed to a career in producing documentaries about adventure travel while managing a media sales career and becoming Publisher of the Telluride Daily Planet in 2008. During this time, Clark continued to pioneer new routes in the Nepali Himalayas and Southwestern United States which led to founding GoDu productions in 2010 and committing full-time to bringing interesting new documentary style programming to this generation of mobile and tough to reach audiences sharing Clark's enthusiasm for adventure and inspiring others to move to action.
Today, GoDu produces lifestyle based series on overlanding (vehicle dependent travel), flyfishing, Heli skiing, ski mountaineering, mountain biking and ultramarathons. Clark's role has taken him all over the world and created a team of ready to go adventurers who live on the edge and appreciate the work life balance it takes to run a company. "Everyday I wake up and know that my job is to knock on every door, plow through every obstacle and negotiate every culture, foreign or corporate. It inspires me to be surrounded by so many great people and to be a part of something that has a social agenda of improving people's perspective on the world and supporting role models who make it attainable."