Anyone who’s ever ridden a fresh powder face knows the feeling: you reach the bottom, adrenaline surging through your veins, and look back up the mountain to see your line, carved into the snow as a temporary souvenir and proof of your feat.

No other sport that we can think of leaves you such a wonderful gift. A skateboard’s wheels make no discernible mark upon the concrete; a surfer’s frothing path down a wave is washed away almost as soon as it’s created.

Perhaps in part because of this physical testament, lines have always played a big role in the quest to document snowboarding’s progression. From tight chutes to big cliffs, jump turns to full-on rooster tails, riders have sought to pit themselves against the steepest faces the mountain can throw at them. And nowhere has this drama played out more frequently than in the freeriding mecca of Alaska, where since the 1990s new lines have been ticked off like so many flags planted atop Himalayan peaks. ‘Mendenhall Towers’ (Dave Hatchett, TB2) ‘Super Spines’ (Noah Salasnek,TB5) ‘Odin’s Ladder’ (Johan Olofsson, TB7) ‘Shoulder of Death’ (Jeremy Jones). The list goes on. Axel Pauporte’s aptly-titled documentary Lines is a fantastic tribute to this ongoing quest.

Lines aren’t always about the extreme descents, however. A line can be almost anything. A spontaneous trick off a wind lip, a flat light blast through the trees, a leisurely cruise between pistes. Forget the movies. Lines are snowboarding.