Does a pig have the power to change lives? Brothers Christopher and Geoffrey Hanson collaborated on the 1998 film “Scrapple,” which asked just such a question. “Scrapple” has been called “‘Babe’ on acid” and “The skibum’s version of ‘Easy Rider,’” but perhaps the mountain-town cult film displayed within its low-budget frames a prescient notion of what was to come.

“Scrapple” features a small-time pot dealer named Al trying to buy a house for his disabled brother, a Vietnam vet. Al involuntarily enters into a love/hate, owner/pet relationship with a pig named Scrapple, which was the prize at an end-of-the-ski-season greased-pig chase. At the end of the summer, Scrapple is to be the guest of honor at a town barbecue, if you catch my drift.

Dubbed the Dharma pig for surviving a hallucinogenic interaction with a stash of Nepali temple balls that Al planned to sell to raise the down payment for the house he wants to buy (which the film presents in a very well-crafted animation sequence), Scrapple is touched by an angel and reincarnates.

In Sun Valley, Idaho, celebrating the Dharma pig to bring in the ski season is fast becoming a tradition, and it’s taken seriously. For the last three years, several Wood River Valley residents have gathered together in their onesies, ’90s ski-wear and hippie garb to celebrate all things “Scrapple” in what is called Scrapplefest.

This year, the festivities reached a new level of worship. An adventurous and industrious crew of locals found a mid-valley site to worship Ullr, the Nordic god of snow, and celebrate ski-bum culture.

“Every ski town across the country thinks about a way to evoke snow through prayer and sacrifice,” said festival co-organizer Juerta. “We have a romantic idea of mountain living, so there are many elements of romanticism we uphold.”

As it becomes even more difficult to hold on to living the dream of skiing 100-daysplus a winter while searching for mountain Nirvana, Scrapplefest is becoming a necessary lifestyle-maintenance event.

Juerta and co-festival organizer Pedro made many calls to organize the fete, which included receiving free bottles of Ullr, a peppermint-and-cinnamon schnapps. They contacted the Hanson brothers, who supplied DVD copies of “Scrapple” and Dharma pig beer cozies were made. Festivities included barbecue pork, beans and coleslaw, several kegs, special cookies and the worship of Ullr through Ullr shots and toasts. In addition to lots of dancing and laughter, ski movies and “Scrapple” were projected on a bed sheet hanging from a barn door opening and were looped throughout the night.

The third-annual Scrapplefest, which was a chilly 15-degrees at its warmest, had live music by the valley’s band Four Stroke Bus honoring the film’s soundtrack of music by Taj Mahal and Sam Cook; large bonfires and rear-entry boot relays, which had more than enough participants waiting for a chance to lift a shot-ski. Relay competitors were eight teams of four people a team. The teams were bound at their boots by bungee cords to form a fivelegged race for the team to lift a shot ski of four shots of Ullr, followed by a dizzy ski pole spin and a gelande-quaffing table mug slide to finish.

Winners received fourth-place Asian swimming trophies from the Goldmine, Ketchum’s thrift store. (All proceeds from the Goldmine support The Community Library.)

“The many people who moved here in the ’70s still live here and give all their old ski wear to the Goldmine,” Pedro said. “The selection of vintage Bogner onesies is exceptional.”

Although “Scrapple” is set in the fictional town of Ajax high in the mountains of Colorado, Scrapplefest takes place in the mountains of Idaho, where the high ski-bum lifestyle has become something to work toward not against. The yearning to save what little is left of the “Scrapple” ski-bum is what keeps Scrapplefest growing each year in Sun Valley.

The 150 to 200 attendees of this year’s gathering have visions of being ski bums, since almost everyone works 40 hours a week at their respective job or jobs in order to act like a ski-bum when time allows. As the saying goes in Sun Valley, you either have three homes or three jobs.

“We have all lived in a house with six other guys trying to find a way to get a ski pass for free from tending bar at the resort [or] teaching ski lessons,” said Pedro. “We have to work to be a ski bum.”

What the Hanson brothers did acknowledge in the haze of marijuana smoke is that mountain-town life has its own microcosm of reality. For example, the issue of Mountain Gazette #51, featured prominently in one scene in the film, is twice the size of what is being read today. An obscure sign in the window asking for votes on Proposition 8 to bring an airport to Ajax is a similar scenario to Sun Valley’s own current airport problems.

Tibetan prayer flags are as common today in the Wood River Valley as they were in the movie and so are sleazy real estate brokers — nothing new there. People still hula-hoop, adore escaping to hot springs, ride cruiser bikes, admire beautiful women, rock climb and dream of powder days.

Although the idea of celebrating “Scrapple” may be disturbing to anyone not living in a mountain town, Scrapplefest reflects a spirit in mountain-town living that is an endangered species on the verge of extinction.

Pedro and Juerta are doing their best to keep the “Scrapple” spirit alive and remarkably can quote “Scrapple” word-for-word in the tradition of any cult film addict.

“I have a job at a bank,” said Pedro. “It’s as un-‘Scrapple’ as you get. Al was struggling with the same things that I do — trying to buy a house and get by living in a mountain town.”

The price of living in paradise is costly. It is about survival.

“There is a story about a group of ski bums in the ’70s hanging out at the Creekside Bar in Warm Springs, and a man needed people for a construction job for $10 an hour for the whole summer,” Pedro said. “The job started the next week, but there was still a week of skiing left. The ski bums said fine if they could start in a week and the construction boss said no so the ski bums said no. It’s trading a lifestyle for skiing.”

The idea of dropping out only describes a handful of people barely making a living and skiing as much as possible. These are not fortune-seekers in pursuit of a career, but folks who would rather be broke living in Sun Valley then almost anywhere else doing their best to keep the “Scrapple” spirit alive.

Juerta and Pedro said they know of one other Scrapplefest in New Mexico.

Sabina Dana Plasse is the Arts Editor for the Idaho Mountain Express. She lives in Ketchum. This is her first story for the Gazette.