If these concepts are simply beyond your imagination or you think it’s too good to be true MC suggests you, “Trade skis with a friend for a run. Just to compare what you used to ski on to what you have now. I guarantee you will only try this (Spatula) once….”

When the Austrian engineers received the plans, they returned them to Turner and reportedly commented,“’There’s something wrong with the file you sent us. The curves are all wrong. The ski is backward. You need to resend the file.’ Then when I said, ‘It’s what we want.’ They looked at me like, ‘You have to be kidding.’”

Pouring valuable time and money into developing it and was one hurdle, but selling it was another. There were no proven market examples to estimate revenues. It was nothing short of gamble, even if the design was endorsed by the world’s best freeskier.

In the fall of 1994, the Gaffney brothers convinced MC to go west… to a place where skiers carved out legendary careers. Where mountain faces were so extreme and so rowdy they attracted only the world’s best skiers to give it a shot.

Blatant exaggeration and exaggerated boasting revolved around the day’s powder skiing before the topic finally landed on the ‘ultimate ski design.’ Then within a matter of minutes, the secret to powder skiing was sketched out on a bar napkin for all to see….

Dismissed by outsiders as a band of renegades who rejected rules and boundaries, they kept to themselves, worked in secret, and sought first tracks, even out of bounds, whenever the opportunity arose. They risked their coveted passes, their livelihoods, and at times, their freedom to doggedly chase their heart’s desire. Now that their historical significance is firmly planted it’s easy for me to assign them as the obvious first choice to kick off this monthly series.