Travel To The Other Side of Fear With Big Mountain Pro Freeskier Cody Townsend As He Traverses The Alps by Ski And Foot
Whether you have yet to set foot outside your nation’s borders or are running out of room for Customs and Immigration to stamp your passport book, you will have something to glean from Cody Townsend. As a professional big mountain freeskier, avid international traveler, and backcountry enthusiast who has won a host of awards including Line of the Year in 2014 for his descent down Alaska’s Tordrillos Mountain Range, Cody has channeled his early life’s passion for skiing into a fully-realized journey that allows him to traverse the globe by foot and, more aptly, by ski. Like any life fueled by a passion, his has not come without sacrifice nor occasional solipsism; but if you ask him, he wouldn’t change a thing.
Nick Cisik: What do you feel makes for a good traveler?
Cody Townsend: A good traveler has definitely got to roll with the punches, I think that’s one of the biggest things. If you have a plan and that plan changes keep the motivation up and keep going, be stoked on the change of plans–that’s definitely the number one thing. It takes a certain amount of confidence. Otherwise, I think it’s motivation, too; to always be stoked to keep moving, to keep going. I’ve been on trips with people with low motivation and it’s infectious. And then, vice-versa is also true. If you’re with someone who’s motivated, it’ll bring you up and you just keep rolling.
NC: We have to talk about 2014. I watched the video of you hitting that chute. (Alaska’s Tordrillos Mountain Range) and I almost had a heart attack just watching it. At the risk of sounding cliché, what’s going through your mind just before attempting something like that? How do you prevent the adrenaline from dictating your behavior and how have you learned to let go of adrenaline in moments of undeniable risk?
CT: I find that confidence comes with capability and with essentially stepping your way up over time. It’s a process. If you know you have the capability then you become confident and you don’t become scared. In that instance, I was as calm as I’ve ever been. I was in a very zen-like state before I dropped in on that for a multitude of reasons. For one, I’d skied “trainer versions” of that. There’s a line in Nevada that I’d skied that was the inspiration for it. I’ve done other couloirs that had similar characteristics; tight and steep like the one you saw. Maybe not quite as long, but they felt kind of the same. So, when I was standing on top, before I dropped in, one, I knew what it was going to feel like from previous experience. Second, it’d been in my brain for so many years, that I’d skied it a thousand times in my brain. So, when I was dropping in on that beforehand it was just like, “Yeah. I’ve got this.” There was no doubt in my mind that everything was going to go perfectly. It would have had to have been something unforeseen, like a rock buried two inches under the snow for things to go poorly. I had full confidence in myself. Yes, there were some variables that could maybe have given me some nerves like, the walls were so steep and the sun was hitting on the upper section of the walls, so the snow was starting to slough off. That was one of my biggest worries: if I dropped in, would the snow slough off and wipe me out while I was in there going like, 60 mph. Now, that would be bad. Those are variables you can’t control and you’re relying on a little bit of luck on that but, for the most part, because I’ve done it so many times in my brain beforehand, I was very calm. It was funny because the cameraman I was with, who’s a close friend of mine, Scott Gaffney… we’ve done a lot of trips together. It was the first time in my life I saw him nervous. I could hear it on the radio and I saw him being like, “Oh, my god. This is gnarly.” He made me kind of nervous! I was like, “Dude, what are you freakin’ out about? This is fine – I got it!” So, I think the way to be sure that fear doesn’t dictate what you do is in the building up to the moment, in going through the process in your head so many times beforehand. And then really visualizing that this is what I’m going to do, and I know I can do this because I’ve done stuff similar to this and you work yourself up to it.
NC: It seems that preparation is critical.
Cody: Yeah, if you’ve never skied a couloir in your life, you don’t just go ski one of the gnarliest ones in the world. You just don’t do that. That would be stupid.
NC: So, having said that...there’s a quote that I read of yours and I’m paraphrasing here – “as big mountain free-skiers we like to push the edge of what is possible.” I feel like, inherent in that – correct me if I’m wrong – there’s some element of fear facing.
CT: Yes.
“The growth that comes with overcoming fear is amazing. You get more confidence in yourself, what you can do in this life. If you start at a young age, stepping over those hurdles, there’s a point in your life where you feel like if you set your mind to it, you can do anything. It’s a really cool feeling to have.”
NC: So, what is fear to you? Do you find a correlation between facing a fear, and personal or spiritual growth? And if so, what’s that relationship? How has it served you?
CT: I definitely think there’s no better feeling in the world than having a fear and overcoming it. There’s this challenging nature of it where everything in your body is just going, like, “What the hell is going on?” But then, you train yourself to use the more rational side of your thoughts to overcome that fear. In doing that… there’s no better feeling of accomplishment. I think this is pertinent to anything; a job interview, for a lot of people, for instance. Say you’re real nervous and fearful but you go in and crush an interview and you get the job. You’re like, “Yeah! Stoked!” There’s something inherently satisfying in that. I don’t know why, if it’s biological or what, but there’s something. But then, for me, I try to break down fear in two different ways: “rational fear” and “emotional fear”. Emotional fear is usually sensory. It’s like looking down at something steep and freaking out. You kind of get this feeling that it’s kind of scary, but not necessarily life threatening. Rational fear is kind of like, when you break it down you figure out, “I have good reason to be scared of this. There’s actually a potential for death here, or serious injury.” Those are the kinds of things I try to break down. Because there are times when a line is very emotionally frightening – it just looks scary, but there’s actually nothing all that scary about it. There might be a blind rollover to a big cliff, but as long as you hit the cliff you’re not going to hit rocks and you might tumble a bit, but there’s nothing you’re going to tumble into so, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? You’re just going to tumble. But you’re still scared; and that’s when you break it down and say, “no, I got this. This is totally fine.” Rational fear is when you’re figuring out, no, this has actual, legitimate danger. Then you figure out how to overcome the situation or circumvent it to see if it’s even possible. The growth that comes with overcoming fear is amazing. You get more confidence in yourself, what you can do in this life. If you start at a young age, stepping over those hurdles, there’s a point in your life where you feel like if you set your mind to it, you can do anything. It’s a really cool feeling to have.
NC: From an outsider’s perspective, you have this fully realized life. It’s defined, it’s passionate…at this point, at this stage, what drives you to continue? What do you seek to explore now, either geographically or spiritually?
CT: You know, for me I think I’m driven by the same thing that drove me when I was very young. Like, the first time you jump off a ten-foot cliff when you’re eleven years old; there’s this fear and this challenge that comes with it and you accomplish it–you’re like, wow that was amazing. So, you’re seeking these new experiences from a very young age. For me, that was really driven a lot by jumping cliffs, skiing big lines really fast and exploring the freeride element of skiing. But what I really find so beautiful about the sport of skiing is that it’s so incredibly varied. There’s like, a thousand different ways to do it. I find fun in jibbing a log at the local resort as much as I do jumping a 60-foot cliff. So, for me these days it’s a matter of finding those new experiences. I’ve spent so much time flying in helicopters skiing in a sort of way that we define as “freeride,” you know? Big cliffs, gnarly lines, skiing super-fast… you’re eliminating a lot of variables so you can perform on this highest level of downhill skiing. For me now, at this point, I’m finding so much more joy in camping and climbing for my own lines. I’m spending more time in the mountains. It’s less about this quantity of cliffs you’re jumping and what tricks you’re doing and more about staying in a zone in the middle of nowhere for three weeks, sleeping in a tent, living in the mountains, feeling the mountains, figuring your own way to get up them and then getting back down. There’s something mentally really challenging about it because you’re exposed in a certain way to even more risk because you’re on the face for, like, five hours as opposed to, if you just get dropped off by a helicopter and you’re just going down. So, you have to figure your own way up, including being in good enough physical shape to ascend it. And then you’re still, you know, getting down in a really fun way. I’m finding a lot of joy in earning my own turns and doing these trips that involve staying and living in the mountains. It’s a totally new experience for me and I think it’s the exact same spirit as when I was ten years old and jumped my first cliff. It’s just a little bit different now.
NC: What sacrifices do you feel you’ve had to make to pursue this lifestyle?
CT: I think that’s a really important question. I think a lot of people don’t realize that, in order to live the kind of life you want to live, you have to sacrifice certain things. For me, that happened during my school age – my high school and college years. I had this dream of being a skier. I didn’t know what kind, just that I wanted to be a skier my whole life. At first, I started with racing. And so, when I was ski racing in high school, I would drive up on the weekends from Santa Cruz where I was going to school and then train and race up here [Tahoe]. Then I would come back and go to school. I didn’t have this lifestyle that a lot of kids do, with parties and stuff. I was almost solitary; I had a couple close friends, but I was kind of on my own: not your typical high school life. Then that developed even more in college. I lived at home and I worked 40 hours a week and went to classes and just stayed home. It was a way for me to save money for the winter so I could take six months off and just ski. It was also a way for me to really focus on my dream. So, I gave up the college lifestyle and I gave up a lot of the high school stuff so I could fulfill this dream of being a professional skier. So, that was probably the biggest sacrifice; missing out on the typical high school and college lifestyle that, you know, everyone perpetuates. The thing is, I don’t regret a second of it. I have a lot of friends that did that and it seemed like a good time and… now they’re accountants and I get to live here and ski for a living. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
NC: You’re obviously well-traveled and you’ve taken trips similar to this one through the Alps. If you could go on any trip again, which one would you take and why?
CT: Gosh…I like these trips like the one we just did in the Alps, where it’s less of a film trip where you’re trying to set up and there’s one story and they’re like, “stay in this one place and perform.” I like the ones that are more like, fly by the seat of your pants and there’s no guide. It’s you and your friends doing stuff. It’s rad that social media exists and I love the fact that there’s so much more accessibility to good camera equipment and digital editing technology these days. It’s so user-friendly that we don’t have to rely on big film companies anymore. We essentially, with our iPhones and a GoPro’s, can go to the Alps and tell this whole story, DIY. Those kinds of things are really interesting to me. There are more trips like that I want to do. Like I said, I want to do the Alps again. We only did such a small portion to it. I think if you really set your mind to it, you could spend two or three months there and do the entire 780 miles of the Alps by skis. It’d be insane.
NC: What’s your diet like? Do you have a specific regimen, such as involving training and sleep? Do you stay away from anything like alcohol?
CT: There’s one thing, and it’s funny because everyone’s weirded-out because of it, but I’m gluten intolerant. I’ve read all these scientific studies and they say it’s made-up or fake. All I know is that about five years ago I went to Bali and stopped eating bread and my entire life changed. I felt so much better. So, I’ve been that way. I haven’t eaten gluten for five or six years now. It’s been life changing. I don’t have allergies, I’m not as sore anymore… even the beer I drink is gluten-free. That was the hardest thing for me because I like good beer. I pretty much stopped drinking for the first two years of it because there was no good gluten-free beer and you know, you have a good day skiing and what are you going to drink, a whiskey while your buddies are drinking beer? So, no, I just kind of stopped drinking. As far as diet, my wife and I try to eat mainly organic. I also stay away from red meat as much as possible, for more environmental reasons. But in general I just try to eat healthy. My biggest thing is natural food vs. processed food. Your body just doesn’t digest preservatives. They mess you up. I’ve been in places like Japan, where all I eat is natural food, not processed, and I get home and have a bag of chips and my stomach is just dying afterwards. I just think that with natural foods, your body just processes them well and you get better energy out of them.
NC: What are your top priorities at this stage in your life?
CT: It’s probably the same thing it’s always been: happiness. Being content with where you’re at and what you’re doing, and not doing anything that makes you dislike life. We don’t have that long on this earth so, definitely that. And then, these days there are other things too. I have a wife and friends and keeping relationships strong is important, and then just being outside every day. I have to be outside doing something, whether it’s biking, running, climbing, skiing…something every day. Otherwise I kind of go crazy. I think people can get stuck in their ways and then end up just sitting on their couch the whole time. It’s hard to get out of that because it feels like crap when you start moving again. I’m in the opposite boat. If I stop moving, I feel like crap. I don’t think it’s a personality trait though, I think it’s just people: if you go out there and start doing stuff all the time, it’s just natural that you’re going to want to keep doing that. Those are just good habits; they make you feel good.
“I think if you really set your mind to it, you could spend two or three months there and do the entire 780 miles of the Alps by skis. It’d be insane.”