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Watch Cody Townsend’s “Line of the Year” Through 4

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Nick

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Here's a direct embed



I think the POV video in the couloir you don't get the proper feeling of steepness either. That's extremely steep and extremely narrow. basically all you can do is rocket down it.

I wasn't able to find where this was exactly either. I am curious!
 

Puck it

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Here's a direct embed



I think the POV video in the couloir you don't get the proper feeling of steepness either. That's extremely steep and extremely narrow. basically all you can do is rocket down it.

I wasn't able to find where this was exactly either. I am curious!


Fixed it
 

Cannonball

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There were pics of Travis Rice snowboarding that same line a while back. They may have even been on the same shoot, because the conditions looked identical. Anyone know who did it first?
 

skiNEwhere

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There were pics of Travis Rice snowboarding that same line a while back. They may have even been on the same shoot, because the conditions looked identical. Anyone know who did it first?

I heard this too. Pretty sure Travis did, but I don't think powder gives awards to snowboarders
 

Cannonball

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Townsend gives the scoop about T Rice and that line (from TGR). Warning to BG and others: Townsend uses some adult words that might offend you....

Alright, so here it goes. Travis did do it first, but until that photo of him just came out there was almost no confirmation of that for me. So here’s the full backstory.

The MSP crew showed up to AK and I had the chance to high-five and chat with Travis before we headed into the mountains. Over our talks he mentioned a really amazing straightline that E-Jack did. Didn’t say anything about himself, what straightline E-jack did or where it was. I brought up a straightline I had been looking at for the last two years in that zone (not the one I did) he knew which one I was talking about, we chatted about it, we high-fived and went our ways. When we flew out I then learned our guides and pilots wouldn’t be the same as theirs. Which at first bummed me out from a safety standpoint because our guides were coming into the zone with as much knowledge of the year’s snowpack as we were, nada. But I didn’t worry cause it was my third time out there, I’ve flown in almost every corner of that zone and knew it really well. We would take our time as a crew, scouting snow and evaluating lines to ski. I’ve since learned that was a purposeful thing that Brainfarm had requested so we wouldn’t “poach” their lines. Which is the first I’ve ever heard of that happening. But again, at the time, I was merely focused on the safety issue that new guides and new pilots brought up, not any reason to ski their lines as I’ve never had a problem in the past of finding lines in AK.

On day 1 we flew out and evaluated the fact that the snow fucking sucked. We found one zone with a miniscule amount of soft snow, shot for a half a day and then sat on our asses for ten days as the sun baked and no new snow came. We flew back out and found a dusting of snow out there, nothing that made anything to ski any more viable. So we scouted and scouted. Our brains started shifting from big hucks and tricks to big lines with no airs because of the hard snow. We flew into a zone I knew of that was stacked with couloirs. I spotted one and immediately thought, “Oh shit, that’s maybe the one that E-jack did that Travis was talking about” as we flew further up the glacier I then found the one in the video. When I first saw it I didn’t even think it would go. With time on our side, I went up to the top, scouted it from above and below and began daydreaming. We went home that day with tales of an insane couloir with a full barrel and the crew at the lodge talked about some insane lines the last crew rode. I guessed it was where we were but didn’t know for sure as there were no visible tracks in both the couloirs I spotted. Since our guides and pilots were different, they couldn’t confirm either. Well actually one of their pilots came out on the tail end of the trip but had actually been forced to sign a NDA with Brainfarm and didn’t say a damn word with the threat of legal action. After it finally snowed enough, well I went back and rode that one in the video and Markus rode the other one. We had pretty much forgot about the possibility of the other guy’s riding those lines too until we heard grumblings of it when the movie launched. But again, never heard any true confirmation till that picture came out.

So that’s the story. Travis rode it first. Unbeknown to me, I rode it second. We released the footage first because they’re working on a 3 year project. I didn’t know for sure who or what was ridden until that photo came out. For the record, there doesn’t seem to be much angst coming from their side. It’s the mountains, lines don’t change too much, so if two people ride it, then that’s they way it’s gonna be. If we starting all claiming that the second time something is ridden it’s a poach, well then Jeremy Jones, Doug Coombs, Dean Cummings and a whole mess of first generation guys should be pissed!
 

JimG.

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I like that he said what he did in the last paragraph.

Fighting over who skied insane lines like that first is besides the point.
 
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