#195: Cody Townsend -- Adventures in Ski Mountaineering THE FIFTY

04.24.2020 - By Chris Ward Play

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This week we are welcoming professional skier and ski-mountaineer Cody Townsend to the show!!

Cody is in the middle of taking on one of the most difficult challenges in ski mountaineering, climbing up and then skiing down the "Fifty Classic Ski Descents in North America". It's a project that requires skill, patience, guts, and effort beyond comprehension. It has also become one heckuva YouTube Adventure series that you should stop and binge watch immediately!

The quick version: after reading his copy of the iconic book "Fifty Classic Ski Descents in North America" Cody thought "I'd ski those" then he thought "I guess I might as well climb up them too." Then he set out to do just that and he's filming each attempt along the way. And the films are freaking awesome, terrifying, hilarious, educational and inspiring all in one. Each episode is legitimately high quality adventure filmmaking which you guys will enjoy immensely!

From the FIFTY PROJECT website:

"From Alaska to Colorado, California to Baffin Island, these lines are among the most difficult in the world and all of them have at least one historical descent. But no one has skied them all. Over the course of the next three years, I will change that.

Drawn in simply by the allure of “I want to ski that,” I plan to devote the next few years of my life to skiing every line documented in that book. And for one final twist, I plan on doing it the hard way, by climbing every line that I ski."

—Cody Townsend, November 2018

This episode explores- What it was like skiing the Line of the Year in 2014 (which is something that has to be seen to believe!), Cody's three rules his lives by through the FIFTY, how he has transitioned as an athlete to add ski-mountaineering to his repertoire, my 6 year old's reactions to his video of Pyramid Peak, how he handles fear, and his decision to postpone this season's adventures due to COVID-19.

Hope you all enjoy the episode!! Cody is an incredible athlete but also a super down to earth easy to talk to kind of dude and I am really grateful he shared an hour with us!!