THE rules that govern the life of Cody Townsend, one of the greatest skiers on the planet, are pretty simple these days. Rule number one: Don't die. That's mandatory, especially now that Townsend and his wife, fellow world-class skier Elyse Saugstad, are parents to two-year-old Indiana. Rule number two: Have fun. That's pretty much a given when Townsend, a prolific star of extreme-skiing films, is flying down a mountain on two planks. Rule number three is where it gets interesting, because he's decided to do something that's never been done, or even attempted. Something almost unfathomable.
Townsend is a freeskier-a practitioner of a kind of alpine daredevilry that involves high-flying jumps and breakneck descents. The trouble with the discipline is that you're beholden to something known as "the progression," a driving force in the ski universe that requires each year's feats to be a little difficult, little more lex than what came before. The term gets mentioned in X Games commentary, social media posts, and ski magazines as part of the vernacular. And here's the thing about the progression: There are no stopwatches or judges in freeskiing. Athletes who progress stay relevant and get paid. Those who plateau fade away or become influencers. And Townsend was never going to fade away.
As a freeskier, Townsend-a six-foot-one, 195-pound Sasquatch of a man-has spent his entire career helicoptering to the tops of powder-draped mountains in Alaska and British Columbia and wowing ski-film audiences by hucking himself artfully from towering cliffs. For the latest step in his progression, though, he's ditched the choppers, downshifted to human power, and embarked on an unprecedented quest, one that has consumed the past five years of his life. That brings us to rule number three: Ski 50 of the most daunting lines in North America, a mission that originated with a now mythic book.
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