Inside Freeskier Cody Townsend’s White-Knuckle Plan to Conquer North America’s Most Dangerous Mountains
By Grayson Schaffer in GQ — 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 more difficult, a little more complex 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 free-skiing. Athletes who progress stay relevant and get paid. Those who plateau fade away or become influencers. And Townsend was never going to fade away.