HOOD RIVER — Bjarne Salén is a name synonymous with mountain adventure. The Swedish cinematographer found his way to Hood River in 2019 after hearing from friends about the endless amount of biking, running and whitewater kayaking accessible from town. Since moving to the Gorge, he’s been able to use Mount Hood as a training hill to keep him in shape for ski adventures all around North America.
Bjarne Salén climbs up to the Sphinx Line in Alaska’s Chugach Mountain Range.
Ming Poon photo
Salén specializes in capturing adventure sports films through his company Endlessflow Films. He started filmmaking in 2010 while living in Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France, often joining his brother in mountaineering throughout the French Alps. The scope of projects have only grown.
Endlessflow Films has brought a variety of stories to life from an all-female kayaking and trekking company in Nepal to a surfer learning to tackle the big waves in Maui. Most notably, he’s made himself a name in the ski mountaineering world as principal cinematographer through the online video series “The Fifty,” currently in its fifth season.
The series is inspired by the book, “50 Classic Ski Descents of North America,” a collection of ski mountaineering routes, from well-trekked peaks to extremely remote mountain ranges. For most, the book is informative and aspirational. For professional skier and snowblader Cody Townsend, the book is akin to a bucket list.
Salén met Townsend originally met in 2015 while filming a ski project on the Svalbard Islands in Norway. They connected after finding they share a passion for ski mountaineering.
Cody Townsend using his ice axes and crampons to carefully ascend Split Mountain to the Split Couloir in the Eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Bjarne Salén photo
“A few years later, he called me and said, ‘Hey, dude, I’m doing this project called The Fifty. Are you interested in filming it?’” Salén said, “It fit pretty well with what I want to do — see more of North America and combine that with work. So I replied, ‘Yeah, we’ll try a year, and then we see how it feels.’ We continued after that.”
Each episode, available on youtube.com/codytownsend, documents the team’s attempts at climbing and skiing the various descents. Salén was able to pull on his wealth of experience from his years in Chamonix to navigate through the alpine with a camera in hand. The series quickly became popular, gaining a worldwide audience online with millions of collective views.
“Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America” also includes a steep ski descent in The Gorge, the Newton-Clark Headwall on the east face of Mount Hood. Salén and Townsend completed it in 2020, joined by professional skier Michelle Parker.
While Townsend and Parker decided to road bike throughout the Cascade Range to tick off various ski descents, Salén had another idea. It was that year he decided built out his first van, which inspired a new creative outlet.
“I always wanted to travel around on the road and be sustainable and independent. I started building my first van when I went on the road with The Fifty,” Salén said. “I then realized I should just start a van business since it’s common for me to turn my passions into work.”
Known as Bjarne Builds, he and a team construct adventure vans as well as tiny homes right in Hood River, Salén’s adopted home. He added that he often designs based on functionality, building on ideas from his own tiny home he lives in full-time. He often updates bjarnebuilds.com with information on current builds, as well as @bjarnebuilds on Instagram.
Cody Townsend and Pep Fujas on the way to summit Mount. Superior in Utah, the first line they completed together in 2019.
Bjarne Salén photo
The Fifty season five
This fall, The Fifty is beginning its fifth season with four upcoming episodes chronicling ski descents in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains to Canada’s Baffin Island.
Salén stated that the first episode of this season, released Oct. 4, documents their experience on Split Couloir, a line they have attempted to ski since 2019.
“We tried it once or twice a year until now, maybe five or six times in total. So it was a lot of tries, but you kind of have to respect the mountain when it doesn’t want you to go up,” Salén said, stating that the turn-around conditions ranged from not enough snow on the line, to high alpine winds, to a gut-feeling that didn’t feel right.
Cody Townsend ascends Mt. Hood during sunrise in 2020.
Bjarne Salén photo
“A lot of depth goes into those decisions in the mountains. We’re humans and we do our best to make the right decisions as often as we possibly can,” he said. “We turn around a lot, probably more than most people.”
Salén and Townsend have now completed 46 of the 50 ski descents in the book. The four remaining include University Peak in Alaska, Mount St. Elias in Alaska, Mount Robson, the highest point in the Canadian Rockies and Comstock Couloir in British Columbia, Canada.
For Salén, there is no specific end date of the series.
Summit view from Mount Hood with Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters in the background.
Bjarne Salén photo
“It might never end because you never know how long it might take to do some of these peaks. Maybe we can finish it another couple of years, or maybe it’s 40 more years or never,” Salén said. “Neither Cody [Townsend] or I want to have a mindset that we need to do the last lines. If it’s dangerous or the conditions aren’t right, we are happy with 46 or 49.”
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