Erich Roepke is drawn to filmmaking projects that explore the limits of human potential and reveal surprising truths about the risks we take and the rewards on the other side. It just so happens that these stories often take place in the most treacherous corners of Earth: sub-60-degree temperatures in remote Alaska; the infamous Otter Body ski route on Grand Teton in Wyoming; or Denali (federally designated as Mount McKinley), the highest peak in North America.
Who
Erich Roepke BA ’16
Major
Philosophy
L&C Highlight
Breaking the school record in the men’s javelin throw
Most Recent Adventure
“Filming the first ski descent of Pakistan’s Great Trango Tower
In September 2024, Roepke was part of a three-person filming crew that discovered the boot of British mountaineer Andrew Comyn Irvine on Mount Everest, where he disappeared 100 years ago without a trace.
What drew you to Lewis & Clark?
I grew up in this little town called Enterprise, Oregon, which is only 2,000 people. My high school had about 125 kids in it. I considered Lewis & Clark a “reach” school. But through a patchwork of scholarships, I was able to attend.
How did your philosophy degree lead to expedition filmmaking?
Around my sophomore year, the Bates Center for Entrepreneurship and Leadership had just started, and a group of friends and I decided to begin a recycling company where we bought and sold scrap metal in central Oregon on the weekends. I realized that even though I loved philosophy, all life paths were available to me. I knew that I enjoyed making videos, I grew up skiing, and I loved the outdoors. During my senior year, my Lewis & Clark roommate Stein Retzlaff BA ’16 and I met a polar explorer, Doug Stoup, and it was a lightning-bolt moment. We drove to Lake Tahoe the day after graduation and interned for him. I figured out that media was a golden ticket to all the trips I could ever dream of.
Why narrative documentary storytelling?
Along with two Lewis & Clark alumni, Stein and Thor Retzlaff BA ’18, I traveled to Patagonia in Chile, and we tried to retrace the 2010 film 180 Degrees South, this time attempting the first ski descent down the Corcovado Volcano. We basically got lost in the jungle for five days, we got covered in leeches, and we lost all our food and water. It’s all filmed, and it’s still one of my favorites. It clicked then that I wanted to tell these stories in complex environments, and there’s a whole business there. I see two elements to my career: filmmaking and the skill of high-altitude cinematography.
Where have you found inspiration?
Jimmy Chin, who is now a collaborator, made a movie called Meru when I was in college, and it blew my mind. I wrote “WWJCD?” on my computer screen so that every time I wrote an email, it was a reminder of “What Would Jimmy Chin Do?” He was a big inspiration. My dad has also been a huge inspiration for me. He passed away when I was 15 in an avalanche in eastern Oregon, and one of his last pieces of advice was when he described the monumental effort it took to change his course in life from plumbing to engineering. He urged me to find my path and go after it with everything I have. Maybe I took that advice a little too literally––I mean, I made up a job. But his words have been welded in my mind ever since.
What’s the skinny on the Everest boot?
The team, led by Jimmy Chin, was working on a documentary about Everest, and I was part of the crew. When we were walking, we came across this boot totally by accident. It was out of the blue. I can’t describe how overwhelmed I felt when we found it. It is connected to one of the greatest mysteries in mountaineering. We looked at it, and it had these hobnails on the bottom, and Jimmy noticed a little tag––we flipped it over and it said “A.C. Irving.” During one of my first Everest expeditions in 2019, I met two other teams entirely dedicated to finding Andrew Irving, so to have us find this boot on a random day…it was pretty amazing!
