C. R. Johnson

Charles Russell Johnson III, known as C. R. Johnson, was a professional freeskier from Truckee, California, who helped carry freeskiing from its early days into big air, slopestyle and superpipe competition. Born in August 1983, he learned to ski at Squaw Valley, landed a 1440 in 1999 and quickly became a recognised young talent. He won the quarter pipe at the Core Games in Japan in 2001, took silver in slopestyle at the 2002 Winter X Games and bronze in superpipe at the 2003 Winter X Games, and appeared in ski films by Matchstick Productions, Poor Boyz Productions and Teton Gravity Research. After a life-threatening head injury in December 2005 he returned to filming and backcountry skiing, placed third at the Red Bull Line Catcher in France in 2010, and died in a skiing accident at Squaw Valley in February 2010, aged 26.