I first saw Tof Henry ski in Courmayeur in 2016 during the Click On The Mountain photo contest. It was the day after the contest had wrapped up, and Jacob Wester invited me and Tom Ritsch to join him for a day of skiing Courmayeur’s Hellbronner lift in near-perfect powder conditions.

Tof was also there, but as Jacob—arguably one of the best skiers on the planet—put it, “You don’t ski with Tof. You try to keep up with him.” We stood at the top of our first run of the day—me shaking in my boots and close to pissing my pants—while Tof did a ski-cut on the slope, and was happily surprised at how well the new snowfall was holding to the slope. He instantly disappeared down the dauntingly steep slope—not even “turning” as such, but merely shifting his weight slightly from edge to edge as he more or less straightlined down a couloir that was one of the gnarliest things I’ve ever skied in my life. It took me about fifty laboring, sweaty turns to get to the bottom; Tof had done it in about five, and was already halfway back to the lift for his next run.

Since then I’ve kept an eye on Tof as one of the leading figures pushing the limits of big-mountain skiing and adapting the freeride riding style to some of Chamonix’s most storied descents. There are not many people in the world who can ski runs like these in this manner and live to tell the tale. Now, Tof is telling his tale in his new film “Born in Chamonix,” produced by well-known freeski photographer and Tof’s longtime friend Daniel Rönnback.