After one season in the Tetons, Stephen Shelesky went cold turkey on snowboarding. He’d fallen into a crowd of ex-ski racers, and chasing them around with his camera on his board just wasn’t cutting it. Without giving himself time to back out, he took the plunge. He rode two Jackson Hole, WY, classics—Corbet’s Couloir and […]

When she was just three years old, Zoya Lynch’s parents made a choice that would shape the rest of her life. Along with three other families, the Lynches decided to jump on an opportunity to build a backcountry lodge in the Canadian Rockies. “They had zero backcountry experience and four little kids, but they were […]

A hundred-inch storm sat draped like a blanket over Little Cottonwood Canyon, UT, in January 2021, causing an infamous “interlodge.” After 60 hours confined inside, the town of Alta was let loose to an open ski area and a closed highway. Fondly referred to as “Country Club,” it was an Alta skier’s dream. If you […]

Drew Smith was driving to a final job interview, picturing a future life that didn’t include photography. The rosy picture in his mind was that of small-town Montana—a good job at the power company, a nice truck, a wife. Maybe a couple of kids running around.  There were no imposing rock walls, no month-long expeditions, and […]

It has been a busy art season for Jeff Leger. Every summer “Lege,” as he’s affectionately known around his adopted home of Jackson, WY, takes a forced annual hiatus from the delights of subnivean days and teeing off cliffs to reflect on gifts of winters past, look forward to future turns, and immerse himself in […]

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 […]

After a relentless spring storm, the clouds finally parted. Leslie Hittmeier stared up at the East Ridge of Mount Bertha, a 10,204-foot glaciated peak in southeast Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park. She had to decide if she could ski the line. Hittmeier and a media crew had traveled with athletes Griffin Post, Elena Hight and Jeremy […]

It was springtime in 1970s Utah, and the wildflowers were just starting to bloom when the general manager at Alta Ski Area, Onno Wieringa, ripped the only toilet from the floor of his little house. Lugging the porcelain throne up his ski hill, he met photographer David Stoecklein midmountain, and set his friend to work. Unfazed, […]

In early September, all of Stockholm was plastered with campaign posters for Sweden’s upcoming general election. One of the posters featured a bespectacled character with a wry smile, standing in the middle of a sunny street flanked by single-family homes with branches from verdant apple trees hanging out over wooden fences. It was an idyllic scene […]

Looking out across the endless gray of the Swiss Alps, snow-frosted and stoic, skiers at Laax were perplexed by the sign. It was shaped like a traditional blue square marker, the universal indicator of intermediate terrain, but in 2015 something about this one was different—it was a simple graphic of a skier bombing down an invisible […]