Eric Heistand

I grew up in rural Ohio, and discovered the mountains thanks to a 300ft ski hill called Mad River Mountain. My dad somehow decided that skiing was the perfect Ohio sport, so in the third grade, I burned holes in my fake leather ski gloves while mastering the rope tow. That old rope tow and the icy slopes of Mad River Mountain created a wanderlust in me that has caused me to take up residence in Colorado, Eastern Europe and Russia, and now the mountains of North Carolina.