The search for new lines

In his first article for CherryPow, professional skier Cody Townsend talks about the motivation and the rewards of finding fresh new tracks outside the ski resorts.

Let’s start this off with a little backstory.

February 14th, 2009. Top of the Tram. Jackson Hole, Wyoming USA. My eyes are drawn to the south. A panorama of ten-thousand foot copper peaks stacked back to back and piercing the dark blue sky is overwhelming. A primitive feeling of nature’s power pervades me. The grandiosity of the scene is breathtaking. I start to visually dissect the land; peak by peak, cliff by cliff, chute by chute. One by one the peaks, cliffs and chutes begin to seem smaller. No, it wasn’t a sudden realization of scale. It’s a realization that everything I’m looking at has been skied before. I’ve seen this all before. I’ve even managed to ski a bit of it before. Don’t get me wrong, it all looks like a hell of a lot of fun to go rip around on, but some of the grandiosity evaporates. It’s unexplainable in rational terms. But there it went.

From that pivotal day I realized that skiing to me isn’t just about skiing a line, jumping a cliff, making a turn or doing a trick. To me, there is a strong lure to go to places where no one has gone before. To poke my head out and see what lies around that next corner. So as March in Jackson Hole rolled around the urge to explore became too much to handle, I rallied the crew, loaded up the sleds and started poking up unknown trails.

One specific trail dead-ended quickly. But the mountains didn’t. So we pushed further. At each ridgeline we gained we halted. Looked around. Scoped out the surroundings for any sight of challenging, ski-able terrain. Ninety percent of the time nothing presented itself. The push continued. Until after one ridge we dropped down into the trees, started traversing through the forest and stumbled up on a magical sight; a 500 foot wall laced with tight spines and dotted with huge cliffs. It looked steeper than bottle service in Vegas and more technical than electrical engineering.

Soon the march was on to get to the top of this thing and ski it. But like all things that seem to good to be true, it was. It wasn’t that the wall didn’t have the steepness and features we imagined, it was that the snow was deep and soft under knee-ripping three-inch punch-crust. That day we knew it wasn’t going to be skied.

It took four more trips to go back there and find skiable conditions. In that zone alone I must have put 150 miles on my snowmobile for just one chance at that wall. Day after day we would go out and find something wrong. Snow was too hot. Snow was too deep (couldn’t hike much less snowmobile to the top). But finally it happened. And all the work, all the exploring and all assessment paid off when I skied it for the first time.

Watch the video

Additional Note: By the way, I skied lots and lots of line in Jackson and had a damn good time doing it and can’t wait to go back. Just for your information so I don’t come off as some sort of shred snob.

Posted by Cody Townsend on September 18th, 2009 in Jackson Hole and USA

Cody Townsend @codytownsend

I'm Cody Townsend, I write about the behind-the-scenes life of being a professional skier. I've appeared in ski films by Teton Gravity Research, Warren Miller, Match Stick Productions, among others. When not in front of the camera or competing I also write for Powder Magazine and Skiing Magazine. My current sponsors who make my lifestyle possible include; Salomon, Swatch, The Levitation Project, Porters Tahoe, Von Zipper, Hestra, Camelbak, Squaw Valley USA.