This ski image of Max Hammer was captured during a five-day trip in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Our goal was to ski and photograph some of the more beautiful couloirs in the range for an assignment for Patagonia.
Forrest Shearer, Max Hammer and myself made the all-day trek to get into the mountains and set up our base camp for five days. After several days of skiing and riding most of the prominent and classic couloirs near camp we discovered this little slit in the cliff. It was a perfect chimney couloir that was never wider than 200cm that was notched perfectly into the granite walls.
I knew if the couloir was going to get any light it would be at sunrise and it would only light it up for a few minutes. Fortunately Forrest and Max were motivated and willing to get up at 4am and make the trek up in the dark to roll the dice and see if we would be greeted by the sun. As luck would have it the sun rose perfectly into the couloir and we were able to get some amazing images. In this shot I was able to stand right above Max and get a close up picture that revealed the tight walls and the narrow couloir he was descending.