North America's best ski routes are disappearing

By Heather Hansman—"When Cody Townsend set out to ski British Columbia’s 8,927-foot Joffre Peak—part of the Fifty, his project to descend the iconic lines collected in the 2010 book Fifty Classic Ski Descents in North America—he thought he might miss the window of skiability.

It was late February of this year, and the unusually thin snowpack and low visibility turned him around on his first attempt. But three days later, Townsend succeeded, sidestepping and jump-turning down the line, despite crummy snow (‘Holy shit, this skiing is gonna suuuuck,’ he tells his cameraman) and an emergency helicopter rescue for a skier on a neighboring couloir (‘Dude, dude, somebody just fell down Central).” READ —>