Sam Smoothy has never skied less in his entire life. Living in New Zealand has its perks, but during the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic, international travel was completely off the table. Fresh off a string of injuries, Smoothy was frothing to get back out on snow, but a lackluster start to the southern hemisphere winter combined with a travel ban forced him to get creative. Always keen for an adventure, Smoothy decided to turn his sights close to home and take advantage of some of the world’s wildest mountains that lay just past his doorstep. Teaming up with a crew of local friends, he sharpened his ski mountaineering skills over the course of several trips into the high peaks of the New Zealand Alps. What should have been an exploratory trip with Griffin Post and Caite Zeliff (don’t worry, they came along too) soon turned into a series of adventures that he will never forget – culminating in his second-ever descent of one of the proudest ski mountaineering lines on the planet.