By Maggie Cassidy

Contrary to widespread beliefs, students looking for extreme skiing expeditions don’t have to book a flight to Colorado this winter. And this weekend, they won’t even have to leave campus to get a glimpse of the extreme East Coast opportunities since they’ll be right in their own backyard.

Meathead Films, a ski film company based in Burlington, Vt., will show its latest movie, “Wanderland,” in West Village F at 7 p.m. Saturday. The men’s and women’s alpine ski team invited “The Meatheads” to Northeastern’s campus as one of more than a dozen stops on a promotional movie tour this fall.

“Most people think there is no extreme skiing on the East Coast. Usually when you watch extreme skiing films, most of the skiing is in crazy places like Alaska or Colorado or Japan,” said the alpine ski team men’s president, Brian Sweeney, a senior computer science and cognitive psychology major. “They stay on this side of the Mississippi River. It’s all places you don’t see highlighted in ski films.”

For “Wanderland,” the Meatheads traveled as near as Stowe and Killington, Vt., as far north as Newfoundland and as far west as Ohio. Most filming takes place in New England, focusing heavily on New Hampshire and Vermont. While there are some scenes from as early as December 2006, most of the shots take place between February and April of this year.

The film features urban, back-country and big mountain skiing.

Chris James, marketing director and co-founder of Meathead Films, said the company aims to prove extreme East Coast skiing is thriving with yearly films documenting the Meatheads’ latest adventures.

“That is what our company is all about,” he said. “There was a gap in the ski film industry and it just made sense to us. Out west is super-saturated with ski film companies, and we were just looking to do something different and give some exposure to the region. Nobody had really seen that footage before. We had our minds set on conquering that.”

They have been making the film for five or six years, he said, and have a core group of about 10 athletes who travel around the East Coast to ski. One main cinematographer shoots the footage alongside two full-time assistants.

Sweeney said he is excited to bring the Meatheads to campus as part of a fundraiser for the ski team, a club sport that spends about $20,000 during the season to travel to different ski locations for practice and competitions. At the event, there will be raffles for posters, jackets and possibly even skis.

The movie should get skiers excited for the winter months ahead, he said.

“It’s supposed to be pretty cool just from looking at the trailers,” he said. “I’m pretty certain the degree of athleticism and showmanship is going to be pretty good.”

He said the film will even appeal to students who have never hit the slopes.

“Most people, when they think of skiing as a spectator sport, this is what they’re most interested in seeing,” Sweeney said, recalling a scene in the movie that documents the biggest cliff jump in East Coast history. “They’re not going to want to watch the technical stuff.”

James agreed, saying the tour aims to “get kids psyched for the ski season,” but isn’t limited to just ski fans.

“We try to relate our movies to any eastern outdoor enthusiast,” he said. “If you appreciate the east – everybody deals with the winters up here that can be long and sloppy – even if you’re not a skier you’re going to appreciate [the movie].”

To watch a trailer of “Wanderland,” visit www.meatheadfilms.com.