Cole Martin spent his first summer at Mt Hood in 2012. He flew into Portland from the East Coast on a red eye then found a ride to Government Camp, and slept on a pile of his clothes surrounded by his charging Elinchrom flash packs in the upstairs loft of a High Cascade rental house.

That summer Cole made a name for himself. First and foremost, his photos were top-tier right out of the gate. Along with the high-end frames he was delivering, there was something about the kid—he was a legend at the bar and a hustler on the Palmer Snowfield.

“The first summer I shot heavily with Johnny [O’Connor] and Mike Rav [Ravelson],” Cole says. “They were the two guys I already knew best and felt comfortable working with. They were always into getting a photo—they’d look at the photos and make sure the riding was good from their end, and I’d make sure the images were good from my end.”…

Subscribe to start your collection of The Snowboarder’s Journal.