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This new blog can be found at www.boston.com/sports or www.boston.com/egan

More About Dan Egan

Dan Egan thrives on action and has been at the forefront of the extreme sports scene since the mid 1980s. As a pro athlete, Egan pioneered extreme skiing and the extreme sports industry. He has led adventure trips around the world from the Alps to the Arctic. His company skiclinics.com runs camps and clinics across North America, Europe and South America. Dan Egan is a writer, world- renowned extreme skiing pioneer and an award-winning and Emmy nominated media producer.

Lucas skis France

So you want to take a ski clinic… Well here is what our clients are saying about us….

“Thank you so much for an amazing, enlightening clinic. i ended the program feeling that my love for skiing had been rejuvenated, even as my body tried to hold…on…to…that…last...turn… unbuckled boots and all! I loved the program. Your enthusiasm is infectious and motivating. So are your love and respect for skiing and the mountains.”  - Annie

Another key to early season skiing is making sure that you take 5-10 minutes and do some stretching exercises. This will loosen up your muscles and help you avoid an early season injury. Calves, thighs and hamstring muscles need a warm-up before they start to do their job. I make it a habit and take 5-10 minutes to stretch before I ski each and every time, all season long. So, take a few minutes – it will go a long way towards helping you have a great day on the slopes!

Now your gear is ready, muscles are stretched, so what’s next? Fuel! Your body needs fuel to burn for a long day of skiing & muscles need energy to burn. In the morning, a healthy breakfast is key. I enjoy hot oatmeal with a bit of honey, a banana along with a glass of O.J. The banana and orange juice will give you potassium & the oatmeal give to some healthy carbs. This is a quick, healthy meal that only takes 5 minutes to prepare. Don’t forget to Hydrate throughout the day too – Water and sport drinks will keep you hydrated and it is just as easy to become dehydrated during the winter months as it is during the summer. So, remember these healthy nutrition tips to keep your engine running while enjoying your day on the mountain.

A combination of tuned gear, stretching your muscles, a healthy pre-ski meal and hydrating throughout the ski day will keep you skiing smooth and flying down the mountain at your favorite resort!

Doug’s tips for the new season

Well the storm came in as promised and it delivered one of those great powder days where your tracks are just filling in between every run.

After some self-arrest drills for steep terrain, Grant, Aleksi, and Mimi showed us what Montanans are made of, braving the bitter wind to shred lap after lap on Thunderwolf’s trees and open meadows.

We broke for lunch and the storm kicked up something fierce! It took some creative route finding to get back to our choice lines as most of the mountain was on wind hold. We made a snap decision to ski down the road back towards town to get back to Thunderwolf and man was that a good idea. The place was deserted; we had run after run of soft and smooth turns through the bumps and trees.

All in all this was a great clinic and we are now even more stoked for our next steep camp at Big Sky March 15 – 17. Check out the short video for more stoke!

We spent the morning honing our skills, focusing on tip pressure and edging so that when we got on the Tram to the top of Lone Peak after an early lunch to dodge the crowds, we were all ready to rip some turns on the steep chutes on the south summit.

The Tram at Big Sky is unique among North American ski lifts. With it’s base station on an alpine glacier and it’s summit house perched on the airy summit of lone peak, overlooking the notorious Big Couloir, it delivers a heavy dose of respect for the extreme terrain it services. Groups of 15 people are whisked up to the summit on a short ride where it feels like you are flying straight into a wall of rock and snow as the peak approaches.

Once on top, we skied down Lenin, a wide chute that cuts a beautiful line down the side of the peak for at least 1000 vert. Big turns through creamy wind buff and corn kept everyone smiling and wanting more. It was so good we just had to lap it all afternoon.

After some tasty runs off the summit, we headed back over to the steeps on Challenger lift and got a few more great runs in to finish the day before heading to the bar for a video review session. Everyone in the clinic made big progress and that was made clear in the video.

Today should be another great day as we’ve got 6 – 10″ in the forecast. Check back tomorrow to see how it goes.

Sure enough, when we got to the hill this morning and met up with Mimi, Grant, Alexi and the gracious hosts at Big Sky’s Snowsports School, all signs were pointing to a great day of ripping the creamy wind buff.

Up on the mountain, we weren’t disappointed. The wind had groomed the hill perfectly for us and we spent the morning laying down arcs on the Thunder Wolf and Lone Moose chairs. This place is so big, even though it was vacation week, we barely ran into anyone!

After lunch, the crew kept up the pace and shredded the Challenger chair all afternoon until the lifties kicked us off. It was soft and smooth in the trees and we couldn’t resist farming the pow.

Tomorrow looks like it’s gonna be another great day. Check back to see what new stoke Big Sky will drum up.

For instance, take the “Explore the Beast with Dan Egan” clinic running throughout this winter at Killington Ski Resort in Vermont. Imagine arriving at Killington on a classic eastern ski day and being greeted by the other enthusiastic people you will be skiing with over the next two days. In your company will be other coaches, instructors, parents, businessmen,  college students, people who ski fifteen days a year and people who ski eighty. The commonality among the group: everyone is excited to be there and ready to improve their own skiing.

So what’s the morning like with SkiClinics? First off, is the overlooked lesson on the importance of breathing. You may have had this lesson before in a yoga studio, but never on the slopes. See, the SkiClinics’ goal is for you to ski better, longer, and where you want to go and the first step is getting oxygen to your muscles and relaxing. The lesson won’t be about how to breathe, it will be to simply do it, which opens up immediate conversation among the group for several chair rides – how simple it is to relax and how much of an impact it has on your confidence. This will be a funny realization because we forget the basics of having a good time – confidently relaxed. SkiClinics will show you that skiing is not about being apprehensive over what to do, it is about complimenting the mountain in your own way. As skiers we are meant to channel our energy, not to control it. You learn this first with remembering to breathe; the first of many simple lessons you pick up with SkiClinics.

What is empowering about skiing with SkiClinics is their commitment to a personalized experience and their understanding of what is realistic. American Olympic skier Bode Miller will admit (beyond our own belief) that he is skiing a great run when 50% of his turns are good turns. That means for us mere mortals (SkiClinics coaches included), if we are doing 25% good turns, than we are skiing the run of our lives.  This freeing mentality combined with accepting that what is accepted as the “absolute right way” is not necessarily what is right for you, allows for you to ski in your own way.  Utilizing Weem’s Sports Diamond for self diagnosis you will learn that if you know why you ski, understand your attachment to the mountain around you, and are willing to do what it takes to ski better, than the technique will follow in suit.

SkiClinics’ creatively different coaching continues with the permission that our natural range of motion is in fact ski technique. Is skiing skeletal or muscular? SkiClinics doesn’t get there. It’s not how they think about skiing. They teach the feeling of skiing – maximize your movements, duplicate, internalize, and the learning will follow. If your committed to whatever it is your skiing purpose is, you will discover a rejuvenated wildness in your skiing – maybe not Dan Egan’s Wild World of Winter material, but wild in your own way.

After experiencing a day with SkiClinics you will be left saying, “Wow, I can’t believe I can do that!”.