Skiing Jackson Hole's Sidecountry, Wyoming

Photograph by Jay Goodrich

“Once I popped the takeoff, I remember thinking ‘knuckles to buckles’ and then my mind went blank,” recalls local skier Hadley Hammer of this cliff most commonly called Smart Bastard in the Jackson Hole Ski Resort sidecountry. “Athletes always talk about the flow, or that moment when
everything is still … and that was certainly one of those moments. The three seconds or so that I was in the air felt like three minutes.”
A trio of skiers, including Hammer, Jess McMillan, and Bryce Newcomb, was exploring the Tetons backcountry when they decided to scout the snowpack on this line. “The area above was littered with sharky rocks and sugary snow, which made it less conducive to skiing fluidly into the air.” Fortunately, the area had received nearly daily snowfall for a month. “I volunteered to go first,” Hammer recalls. “I went in with more speed than I needed and passed the ideal transition spot, but the snow was soft and the landing gentle."
Getting the Shot
“When Hadley dropped the line, I believe there was a four-letter expletive shouted amongst the whole group that had gathered,” recalls photographer Jay Goodrich. “It was the biggest air that I have personally photographed. Hadley is one of only six women to ever ski this line.”
To get the shot, Goodrich positioned himself in a relatively easy-to-access spot. “I chose that area because it allowed me to capture the whole face and illustrate how immense it truly is,” he recalls. Photographing under the first sunny sky in almost a month, Goodrich adjusted for the shadows cast on the line. “I needed an exposure that would allow me to get detail in both the shadows and the highlights once I got the image into Adobe’s Lightroom,” says Goodrich. “I knew from experience that as soon as Hadley left the takeoff she was headed into the shade, so capturing shadows that weren’t black was very important. I was lucky in that snow reflects so much sunlight reflecting into the shadows, which helped my exposure.
“Hadley is a very accomplished skier, so I wasn’t surprised at all that she was going for it. Her speed and lack of any hesitation at which she skied the line—it’s not everyday that you see someone step up to something that big and treat it like they own it,” Goodrich says.
Goodrich photographed with a Canon 1DX camera and Canon EF 70-200mm, f/4L IS USM lens, with a 1.4x version III teleconverter.