After four years racing on the Montana State University ski team, I graduated with a degree in Geology and moved to Jackson, Wyoming. I worked as a geologist in the summer months, and as a ski technician in the winters. It was here I also began my guiding career working as a heli-ski guide for High Mountain Helicopters in 1986. I continue to live in Jackson today, although I spend my winters skiing in the European Alps.

In 1991, Life-Link International, a Jackson Hole Company making avalanche and backcountry skiing products, gave me a plane ticket to Valdez, Alaska to enter the first World Extreme Skiing Championships. Life-Link jokingly told me that if I didn't win, to earn my plane ticket I would have to paint their building upon my return. Fortunately I won the contest, winning a free trip back to Valdez the following spring to defend my title.

I returned to Valdez the following spring with my wife Emily and some friends from Jackson, Wyoming. Together we pioneered first descents in the Chugach Range using Alaska West Air Taxi service operating out of the Tsaina Lodge. We were infatuated with the Chugach terrain! How could we continue to ski there? We figured the secret of the Chugach would soon be out, bringing skiers who would prefer to hire guides rather than fending for themselves on these overwhelming peaks. So we took a gamble. My wife and I started a ski guiding business, Valdez Heli-Ski Guides, in cooperation with the existing air taxi service. It seemed a crazy idea at the time, but we did it anyway. Within a few years we were operating with a team of 12 guides and three A-star helicopters.

Before 1993, the Chugach range outside Valdez offered unguided heli-skiing only, serving people like ourselves who hired the helicopter to drop them off on nameless peaks to find their own way down the mountain. Within a few years, unguided heli-skiing near Valdez vanished. Today there are five commercial guided heli-ski operations near Valdez.

Valdez Heli-Ski Guides has evolved into a world class heli-ski operation, and in my opinion is the best and most professional guide service in the Valdez area. I am proud to have been the founder of it, and excited to watch it continue to improve and grow under new ownership. I continue to guide for Valdez Heli-Ski Guides each spring.

My wife Emily and I also founded Steep Skiing Camps Worldwide in 1993 in Jackson, Wyoming. In 1997 we moved these Steep Skiing Camps to the European Alps in search of the ultimate place for our camps. The Alps proved to be the ultimate place for our steep camps with unlimited steep and adventurous terrain.

I continue to work closely with my sponsors of the last 14 years: K2, Marmot, Tecnica and Life-Link. Without these sponsors, I would not have had the opportunity to do the things I have done, and would not be where I am today! Each sponsor has contributed to make it possible for me to pursue my life as a skier and as a guide. Each sponsor has contributed to the creation and development of Valdez Heli-Ski Guides and Steep Skiing Camps Worldwide.

I am internationally certified by UIAGM and I have guided and educated hundreds of men and women from around the world, while maintaining an excellent safety record. A high percentage of my clientele return to ski with me year after year.

Doug Coombs