A simple fact of professional skiing is that the content you capture throughout the wintery months is usually relegated to top secret status until the Fall movie releases. So unfortunately a lot of the video and pictures I capture along the way I cannot share with the world. Which sucks in many ways because there is some cool stories along the way and I'd love to share them real time. But (and here's the big but) there is a time in the season when the movies are out, I've had a chance to see what film shots and photographs the content providers have used and then I can start to blast the interweb with unused videos, photos and stories from the winter's past. So now is the time folks. It is story time!

This particular adventure starts in frozen ski boots, perched high atop the Sierra's, with a blazing red sunset falling behind the horizon of the California coast. Jeremy Jones and I discussed lines, hikes and couloirs that were just off the beaten path. Mountains and faces that would tickle off the lips of only serious ski junkies while 99% of skiers flew, drove or skinned right on by. There was one particular couloir of this magnitude and character that I knew about from years past. I began to hype it up to him. "It's a pencil of snow amid thousands of feet of rock." "Shoots straight out of the river" "It's a hallway to heaven" Jeremy was easily convinced. We were off tomorrow.

Jeremy has a very particular laugh. It's a laugh that encompasses the fortune of happiness along with the challenge that accompanies the pleasure. When we pulled up to the bottom of this particular couloir, he laughed.



There wasn't much preparation in the ascent of the couloir. It was pretty much, cross the river, don't get your feet wet, skirt the talus, hike the couloir. No ropes, no crampons, no nothing. Just your own two feet. Well that is the way it was supposed to be. Jeremy had the secret weapon that made me feel like Minnesotan moose trying to ford a Floridian swamp. Jeremy floated atop the punchy crust of the talus with his Vertical Ascender snowshoes while I mercilessly sunk up to my crotch on every step. The frustration was boiling as hot as the sweat that pored off my body. I crunched down into a hollow abyss of snow while Jer's tracks sunk mere inches. Never in my life have I prayed so vigorously for hard snow. After an extra hour of struggle the pitch started to steepen and the frozen avalanche debris at the exit of the couloir began to harden enough to prevent my sinking. It was a welcomed grace.



Soon the major push was on. I chased Jeremy up the couloir as his mountain goat legs escalatored him to the top at a ridiculous pace.



After three hours of very straight forward but at times extremely difficult slogging (for myself, not Jer) we had made it.



And now it's time for the down. Although I'm really learning to love the up, in reality it's all about the down. I mean really people, if there was no down, we wouldn't go up. Oh and Jer and I wanted to ride this with a unique touch. As much as I love the guy and respect everything he's done, we did not want this to be an McClean 168cm hopped turned descent. We wanted to flash this thing. Edge to edge, continually and fast. I think we accomplished that task, but why don't you check it out for yourself.

Flashing Hallways from Cody Townsend on Vimeo.

It's hard keeping your tips down the fall line in a 6 to 10 foot wide couloir with a solid 45 to 50 degree pitch. But man is it worth the challenge. A great day.