At the behest of the film's writer / director Steven James Creazzo, "The Ascent" was being pushed to shoot in Alaska, June/July 2010. However, the executive producers pushed for Austin, TX in November/December 2009. In the end, the (Austin) locations worked adequately. But pick-ups were then required to open up the film a bit and give it more scale, as far as mountains and such - which would not have been needed if the production had waited and shot in Alaska.