Pete McBride

Native Coloradan Pete McBride’s photography career has taken him on assignment to over 60 countries for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Outside, Men’s Journal, Esquire and other publications. His passion, combined with a profound belief in conservation, propelled him to spend over two years documenting his local river — the Colorado. This personal project culminated in a book The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict and a short film Chasing Water (Mountainfilm 2011). With an aptitude for adventure and rivers, McBride has run rivers source to sea with a camera in hand. He took a SUP down the Colorado River in 2014 when a pulse of water brought the river to the ocean for the first time in almost 20 years, which he chronicled in Delta Dawn (Mountainfilm 2015). McBride is also the mastermind behind two other films: the first tells the story of traveling down the length of the Ganges river in the film Holy (un)Holy River (Mountainfilm 2016) and the second, Martin’s Boat (Mountainfilm 2016), which pays tribute to the legendary Martin Litton, dory master of the Colorado river in the Grand Canyon. McBride, along with author Kevin Fedarko, also completed a thru-hike of the Grand Canyon — a tremendous feat documented in his film, Into the Canyon (Mountainfilm 2019), which was nominated for an Emmy. His latest book The Colorado River: Chasing Water (Rizzoli 2024) celebrates one of America’s most iconic rivers and warns against overuse and climate change.  His recent film Asking Less is having its World Premiere at Mountainfilm 2024.