By Jacob Schiller
OUTSIDE — Last year I called professional skier Cody Townsend just as he summited Ward Peak on skins, above California’s Palisades Tahoe. We’d set up an interview to talk about his ski poles, and he’d timed things so he was at the top, with cell reception, just as I rang.
It was odd to be calling Townsend to discuss ski poles instead of his many interesting endeavors—like tackling North America’s 50 most iconic backcountry ski lines—but he was as charismatic and enthusiastic as ever. And it was actually because of that ski project, which he calls The Fifty, that I’d landed on the subject of his gear . . .
. . . “The most questions I’ve gotten have been about my damn poles,” he said in a video while standing in his garage, surrounded by gear. “I didn’t know people cared about poles so much. Almost every time I post a video, people talk about these things. I don’t even know the name of them.”