When I first met Christian Pondella in 1996 in Mammoth, CA, he was a skinny, cackling bundle of energy with a ponytail halfway to his ass, and a penchant for 208-centimeter Volkl GS skis and steep northy couloirs.

I had connected with him during a spring trip from Colorado to visit my college buddy Nathan Wallace and ski Mammoth, maybe even some of the legendary peaks of the surrounding High Sierra. Nathan had been backcountry skiing with Pondella all season and I jumped right on their train. The highlight of many descents we did was an overnight mission to the north couloir of a mountain called Red Slate, an exposed and aesthetic line right off the summit, one of the crown jewels of the area. It was the scariest and most exhilarating experience of my young life.

The images Pondella captured there were stellar—steep, technical skiing with a wild backdrop of soaring rock faces. We knew we had the goods—this was the kind of cutting-edge skiing we wanted to see in magazines…

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