Photo: Youtube/The FIFTY+
Cody Townsend put The FIFTY to bed earlier this year. Kind of. It was bittersweet news back in March when Townsend said he’d no longer be documenting his efforts to hit all 50 locations from the book, The 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America. It was also shocking news because Townsend had hiked and skied 46 of those monumental lines.
There was some initial confusion among fans if Cody was throwing in the towel on his effort to continue crossing descents off the list all together, or if he was just halting the production so many people had grown to love. It turned out to be the latter, with Townsend saying he would still attempt the final four on his list but the external pressure of finding funding for a YouTube series and having to finish an entire episode with each attempt could steal focus from the mountains themselves.
“Being a professional skier is a complex job, and I want to make sure the job interferes less with four of the most difficult and dangerous lines in North America,” he said back in March. He teased something else would be coming even if the original project was off the table.
Townsend is finally back now with an entirely new(ish) project. FIFTY+. This new concept will build on the original focus of The 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America, but Townsend will be exploring new descents and putting his own “classic” stamp on each (or not). In other words, Cody Townsend is creating his own documentary style version of the book that inspired his work and in turn, revealed one of skiing’s most likable and engaging storytellers.
“Using a personally created metric of characteristics like aesthetics, ski quality, climb quality, bragging rights and more, each episode will venture into the mountains and come home with a decision on the question, ‘Is it a classic or not?'” he says.
So, how many more classics might actually be out there in North America? His first ride back in the saddle takes him to Alaska’s North Star Couloir to find out.
