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Somewhere in the Coastal Range of British Columbia lies one of the best skiable couloirs in North America, the Combatant Couloir. This epic thousand-meter chute has been a destination for the world’s best ski mountaineers to attempt for decades; and has become even more popular after the publication of 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America in 2010. In that vein, Cody Townsend has been documenting his mission to ski all fifty descents included in this book. Episode 41/50 brought him to the Combatant Couloir where he and TGR’s Nick McNutt set out to check this line off the list. As they climbed up the couloir, however, they were surprised to find that the clean run off the top straight to the bottom was not skiable anymore. Rising global temperatures and heat domes that form over top of mountains have melted the permanent snow that used to preserve legendary lines such as the Combatant and rendered them mostly unrideable. While Cody and Nick still got to ski 98 percent of the run, they left the couloir feeling a little unsatisfied with the outcome. Hopefully, as we humans address the climate crisis, we can reverse the global temperature trend and save places like these from sharing a similar fate.
