Pro Skier Hacks Into Death Defying Run | The New York Times

This is Sage Cattabrigoloso, you're watching Behind the Line, the Chiseler. So yesterday we came to this zone, pretty sweet spot, and there was this nice line that had like a big kind of spine that stuck off of it, but to get into it was kind of challenging because there was this big cornice. I just looked at this one line and I said, Sage, that line has your name on it. I mean, I could ski it, Angel could ski it, Laguerre could ski it, but truly you're the one who's going to ski it the best. We got up there and of course it was much more difficult to get in there than Sage had imagined from the bottom. When we all get dropped off, that's the kind of the starting point. The wheels are in motion and from there everyone's getting ready to shoot from the helicopter and once that's ready, the helicopter lifts and Sage was nowhere near ready at that point. He's still chiseling away at this line, he doesn't even know if he's going to ski it at that point, but yet the helicopter's in the air, so time is of the essence really and it's limited for him. In this situation, I didn't want to mess with the cornice like on top of it, and so to get in the line I had to figure out a way around this cornice. This thing was massive, the size of a truck. At first it was like pow on top, so it was going pretty quick. I could get a big chunk to go off, another big chunk to go off. It's not me. I'm tunneling. It's f***ing gnarly. I don't know. So while other people are skiing, I'm still just like working away, like no idea if I'll even be able to ski my line. In my head, I'm really just like in this funny space where I'm just like an animal digging away at this thing, just getting through the snow, just augering it down and just chiseling at this thing, just wanting it, you know, badly. The clock's ticking and I'm just like, can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this? All right, Sage, we're coming up for you, man. Finally, I'd chiseled as much as I could. Everybody else had skied. It was my turn, whether I was ready or not. So it was either I was going to go or I was going to tell them, nah, go land. I can't do this. And I clicked into my skis and I stood up and I got that first look and I realized like, yep, this is going to work. FYI, I kind of have to creep off this cornice because it's super weird to get into this line, so it's going to start a little slow. He was really unsure about it, but he just stuck with it and thankfully he was able to get it done because it was a rad line. Whoa. Gnar is bright. You know, each line has a crux, something that's the most difficult part. In this line, it was all about the entry. Once I'd got in and landed, I was kind of above this big cliff and all I had to do is kind of ski around and then it was open. I was making pow turns down this really fun spine. Dude, only f***ing sage. He's totally barreled right now. Yeah! In the flick! It was a very aesthetic line and I made it happen and I got in, skied it well, and you know, before I'm even to the bottom, you know, Max yelling like, in the flick! You know, which is kind of like this joke that we have when anyone does anything amazing, we just joke that it's in the movie instantly, like automatically. And that one made it in, so he was right. Dude, that was twisted! I chiseled a lot of snow though. Dude, that's in the flick!