More folks to listen to

I'm pretty suspicious of any big-mountain ripper that comes out of SLC or Jackson. Getting treated like a beater at Snowbird on two different occasions after I'd been jumping respectable cliffs all day lead me to believe that these guys are WAY too intense about their scene, like Flea's locals-or-die surf crew from Point Break that swerved across lanes on the highway while standing in the back of a topless Jeep and tried to beat up Keanu Reeves before Swayze dropped heads.

Despite the fact that Cody Townsend has allies in both Little Cottonwood and out of every gate at Jackson, and despite the fact that he skies for Salomon (of which I'm highly suspicious in general... even though i own Czars and love them), I am starting to enjoy his blog a lot. I think also that pro skiers seem to be much cooler and chiller than the gnarathon locals who bitch at you for slowing them down on the traverse (I'm sorry, there are no traverses at any of the mountains in Aspen, so FUCK OFF). At any rate, I caught two gems of video off his blog today.

The first is a Cody's helmet-cammed run from that rediculously tight and long couloir Jeremy Jones rips in the trailer for Deeper. Turns out Cody is so cool he gets to ride with Jeremy. Instant seal of approval... double seal of approval for keeping his speed down that whole thing.

Flashing Hallways from Cody Townsend on Vimeo.

The second is Cody's post of the Verbier Extreme video from last year. I have always known that when it comes to skiing, the Euros let you go and do whatever you goddamn please, which is why I'm going there for the winter. What I didn't know is that they occasionally force you to go down whatever they goddamn please, to the tune of the Extreme venue being the Bec de Rosses, which is a 2800 vertical feet face (Squaw is 2100 in total) of no-fall cliff bands with no apparent way down, even if you've looked at the face four or five times, or spent two weeks looking at it and watching video of it three hours a day, as many of the pros did in preperation. You only need to watch the first few minutes of the fly-over shots to understand why JT Holmes, who needs to introduction, is shitting his pants. The empty start gate at the top is the icing on the cake... And since Freecaster doesn't understand how to embed things, you'll have to suffer through an extra mouse click to get to the link.