Get Your Camp On—Five Hot Spots to Get a Shred-Ucation
By Peter Kray
Check out a ski or snowboarding camp for adventure and a chance to improve your sliding moves.
Like an international pro snow safari, ski camps across the planet are offering cool new ways to travel, learn a better turn, and meet some fun folks as well. Whether it’s straightlining the steepest chutes, floating through the fluffiest powder, or twisting through the terrain park, you can go anywhere from California to Kashmir this winter to get some new sliding skills.
“Taking a ski camp is the best way to learn, because you are surrounded by motivated skiers who also want to get better,” says Dan Egan, who runs the X-Team Clinics, a series of big mountain ski camps that match the best big mountain skiers with the best conditions in the world. “Usually you are in a group at your own level, which creates added confidence. That combination of confidence and the support of the group will create a breakthrough situation.”
Voted one of the best big mountain skiers of the past 25 years by POWDER Magazine, Egan operates X-Team Clinics along with his brother, John, and Eric and Rob DesLauriers (who last year summited and skied Mount Everest with his wife, Kit DesLauriers, the first person to climb and ski from the summit of the highest point on each continent). Dan’s X-Team will be hitting the big open spaces of Kashmir, Squaw Valley, Valdez, Val d’Isere, and even Sugarbush, Vermont, this year.
“Heli-skiing in Valdez is a must-do trip if you are a die-hard skier,” says Egan. “Nothing compares to the steeps of the Chugach mountains. Period.”
While many of us might not be quite ready to ski the big faces of Alaska, here’s a quick hit list of some the best ways to start getting there:
X-Team Ski Clinics
A worldwide list of settings lets skiers combine amazing travel opportunities with once-in-a-lifetime ski adventures. Clinics can last from three days to more than a week, with video analysis, instruction, and guiding. Some trips may also include helicopter time. (www.skiclinics.com, (800) 983-2670; from $1,000 to $7,000)
North American Ski Training Center
If you’d like to see a few deep-snow diplomas attached to the counselors at your carve camp, then you definitely want to talk to the folks at the North American Ski Training Center (NASTC). This elite group of instructors and guides includes members of the Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Demo Team and certified American Mountain Guides Association ski mountaineering guides. NASTC covers the two Americas from as far north as Alyeska, Alaska, and as far south as Las Lenas, Argentina. European courses include Chamonix and La Grave. They also offer courses to hone your backcountry and avalanche skills.
(www.skinastc.com, (530) 582-4772; from $255 for a one-day California ski touring course to $4,250 for a Canadian heli-ski adventure)
Windells Snowboard Camp
Building on the way band camp and summer camp make memories for millions, Windells has done the same for the shred generation. Whether it’s snowboarding or skateboarding, this old-school setup of cabins, cafeteria, and huge halfpipes (right on the “campus”) has been pivotal in helping to define Mount Hood, Oregon’s world-famous sideways sliding scene. Full halfpipe and terrain park camps are available from December (on Mount Hood, which averages more than 600 inches a year) all the way to August (on the glacier). Send your kids, or send yourself for a memorable weekend with snowboarding, sushi, and a special camp experience for couples.
(www.windells.com, (800) 765-7669; from $500 to $1,390 for winter camps)
Babes in the Backcountry
Little Red Riding Hood would never have gotten lost in the woods if she’d only taken a course with Babes in the Backcountry. Run by Leslie Ross out of Breckenridge, Colorado, BIB offers telemark camps, backcountry, and avalanche skills camps, and even steep skiing and yoga retreats—most for women only. The chance to test new gear and get lots of swag all while you ski with your new best girlfriends make this a personally enriching scene. Expect to learn new outdoor skills, as well as new ideas about how you look at the world. A full slate of travel, educational, and basic- to expert-level workshops is available all winter long.
(www.babesinthebackcountry.com, (970) 453-4060; from $100 to $2,600 for a South American excursion)
Chocolate Freeride
Of course, sometimes you just want to get out to some far-out shred spot with some good guides and ski all the deep powder that you can. That’s where Chocolate Freeride comes in. A relatively new operation with offices in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Verbier, Switzerland, Chocolate is offering customized client and guide trips in the Alps all winter, as well as excursions to Alaska. A trip to Kashmir in February will be led by legendary guide John Falkiner, and there will also be trips to Italy and Japan.
(www.chocolatefreeride.com, (307) 222-4910; contact for specific price information)
Pete Kray writes about epic outdoor adventures from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Posted on January 29, 2007