It’s July of 2009, and as I strap into my splitboard and look back at my 30-mile traverse through some of the most gnarly terrain I’ve ever experienced, I think about how far I’ve come. Below me, lies a wild, 55-degree chute that I hope will constitute yet another first descent I’ve completed this season. I grip my ice axe, and I wonder which reality is worse-- that one false turn will send me tumbling 1500’ to my death, or the fact that this possibility no longer intimidates me as it used to. The 2009 Touring Season, which I’m just now wrapping up, has been a wild one, filled with close calls and epic lines, but to understand how I ended up poised at the mouth of the chute described above, you’ve got to take a look at my season from the beginning. Of course, going back to my original days of gaperdom (we’ve all got ‘em, after all) would really give you the full perspective, but let’s start out with one of my first seasonal pursuits o’ pow-pow… back to January of this year on a North Cascades giant named Silverstar.