Learn Extreme & Powder Skiing

Advanced and expert skiers and snowboarders thrive on pushing their limits, but most accept they should learn to ski or ride in deep powder, on steep slopes and through mogul fields before tackling extreme terrain. Routes to learning these skills rarely are taught in traditional ski school lessons.

Here are top places where you can learn how to enjoy powder so deep you need a snorkel, and terrain so steep you get vertigo looking downward. Some programs are within ski resort boundaries, other choices are special camps or heli-skiing weeks taking you to pristine powder in the backcountry.

Aspen Highlands/Jeremy Swanson

Bumps for Boomers runs many powder and mogul clinics throughout the winter on the slopes in Aspen, Colorado. It's a unique style of teaching bumps and powder skiing for older, ageing knees that is extremely effective. These are multi-day clinics.

Tristan Greszko/Jackson Hole Mountain Resort

You may never want to leap into Corbet's Couloir at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, but after taking a Steep and Deep camp you'll be comfortable exploring the Hobacks and other steep terrain at this Wyoming resort. If you don't want to go to camp and your skill levels is appropriate, sign up for one of the resort's guided Backcountry tours.

Vail's Blue Sky Basin/Rex Wehman Photo by Liam Doran

Adventure Sessions at Vail, Colorado, match you with a top guide and a small group of similarly skilled skiers and riders and you'll head toward places that you may not have been before, cut lift lines and pick up tips and technical information along the way.

Portillo, Chile/Kim Reichhelm

Kim Reichhelm offers offers a variety of clinics and ski weeks throughout the winter, including Women's Ski Adventures, Co-ed Steep Skiing Camps and spring heliski trips in Alaska. In the summer, her clinics are in Portillo, Chile.

Former Alaskan Extreme Skiing Champion, veteran of nine World Extreme Skiing Championships and 21 Warren Miller Films, has some adventure camps this winter.? Take a look at "The Italian Wine & Dine Tour with a Skiing Problem" in Italy and "Chris Anthony's Heli-camp Alaska Style."

Canadian Mountain Holidays

Canadian Mountain Holidays offers heli-ski Powder-Intro trips to Powder Master Programs and heli-assisted ski touring trips. CMH has several lodges in the Canadian Rockies. Some you reach by helicopter; others are in towns.

A site created by Wayne Nicholson, an avid backcountry skier who enjoys watching videos of people skiing on Youtube. The videos he's collected show some serious backcountry skiing around the world and a few crashes. In the website's Learn to Ski section, there's a video with tips on skiing extreme steeps and powder.

Alaska/Mike Overcast

This company offers a year-round range of adventures with world-class athletes. Top among the trips are heli-skiing in Alaska, skiing steeps in Jackson Hole and tackling European slopes. Many of the adventures are customized for guests.

Book a clinic or private with Powder Extreme if you want to learn how to ski and snowboard off-piste and in powder in Verbier, Switzerland. Powder Extremes specialists coach first-time off-piste skiers and snowboarders, as well as experienced off-piste skiers and riders who want to challenge couloirs and cliff drops.

Steamboat/Courtesy Larry Pierce

Here's a list of extreme skiing slopes within ski area boundaries at major North American resorts, including Heavenly Resort, Aspen Highlands, Whistler and Steamboat. The descriptions come from local expert skiers who volunteered inside tips for challenging these extreme chunks of inbound terrain.

No one should venture into these steeps and glades unless they are sure they have the skills to handle the terrain. These resorts offer clinics to teach adventurous snow sliders ways to handle ungroomed terrain.

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