An amateur skier's account of conquering one of the most challenging off-piste tracks

The locals call it the Big Couloir, or the Big C for short. And twisting down precipitously for 400m from the summit of Lone Mountain, it really is very big indeed. 

All week, during my off-piste training camp at the Big Sky ski resort in the US state of Montana, I’ve been casting a suspicious eye up at the Big C. Starting at 3,340m above sea level, it snakes down the north face of the mountain, through a perilously narrow gully with sharp rocks on either side. At its narrowest, it’s just 4.5m wide. At its steepest, the angle of decline is a gut-wrenching 50 degrees. I am drastically underqualified to ski down this. There are snowballs in hell with greater chances of finishing the run. 

This is where Dan Egan comes in. A former mogul skiing champion and a bit of a legend in the US, this 59-year-old now runs off-piste skiing camps in both the Rocky Mountains and the Alps. By enrolling me in his Dan Egan Steeps Camp, he’s agreed to turn me into a skier who can descend the Big C while avoiding spinal injuries. It’s a tall order.

Somewhere between intermediate and experienced is how I would describe my skiing at the start of the course. Over the years, I’ve schussed down thousands of pistes – in both the Alps and the Rocky Mountains – but I rarely choose to head off-piste. What holds me back most is a lack of consistency, as I never manage to string together more than a few days on the slopes once a winter. And I’m completely self-taught, so my style is rigid, sometimes tentative, often ugly. But Dan promises to change all that. He has three days to transform me from weekend piste-warrior to off-piste hero.

Dan’s life story sounds like the plot of a novel. Indeed, the most intriguing bits are recounted in his 2021 book on extreme skiing, 30 Years In A White Haze. Here he describes how he first learned to ski on the wintry streets of the Boston suburbs before graduating to the mountains of New Hampshire. As a high-school kid, he would sneak away from the parental home to learn extreme skiing from his older brother, John. 

Starting in the 1980s, John and Dan built up a reputation as two of the most daring skiers on the planet. ‘We travelled throughout the Eastern Bloc at the end of the Cold War, skied with Kurds in Turkey during Desert Storm [the 1990s Gulf War], pioneered heli-skiing in Chile, skied the Martial Glacier above the Drake Passage on the southern tip of Argentina, snuck into Lebanon to ski in the mid-1990s,’ he writes in his book. ‘John and I have chalked up more than 50 first descents, launched off cliffs the height of 12-storey buildings and skied more than our share of pristinely perfect powder snow on mountain peaks around the globe.’ 

All of which suggests teaching a hacker like me might be a tedious task. Quite the opposite, in fact. Throughout my three-day course, Dan and his fellow instructors prove to be unremittingly upbeat and positive, constantly arming me with the skills and confidence I need to push on to the next level. 

STEEP LEARNING CURVE

Big Sky, with its 2,340 hectares of skiable terrain, offers all sorts of opportunities for off-piste practice. Unlike in European resorts, where off-piste is out of bounds and must be negotiated at one’s own risk, in the US it is considered within bounds. Instead of marked pistes, it consists of ungroomed snow, all of which has been avalanche-controlled by ski patrollers. 
At Big Sky this means I regularly find myself following Dan down steep gullies, over bumpy mogul fields and through tangled, pine-dotted glades. Patiently, he points out how I need to change my stance, my line of sight, my breathing, my mental attitude.

Most of all, he encourages me to stand tall and forwards as I ski, pushing my shins into the top of my boots, using the tips of my skis to control my turns. ‘Your tips are your brake, your gas and your clutch,’ he says, encouraging me to ski more aggressively. 

After a couple of hours, my skiing has improved exponentially. I’m attacking the mogul fields (well, sort of), rather than edging down them gingerly. I’m planting my poles into the turns, using the moguls as platforms on which to switch direction and slow down. ‘The hump of the bump,’ Dan calls it.

But far more importantly than my technique, I’m making huge advances in confidence. Dan urges me to ski faster. ‘Being out of control is what skiing is all about,’ he says. ‘Skiing feels like chaos.’ It may sound like irresponsible advice, but psychologically, it works a treat. 

On the resort website, he explains his psychological attitude to the sport. ‘I teach skiing from the head down, not the feet up,’ he says. ‘I help people free themselves of their critical mind.’ 

Now it’s time to put my new-found skills to the test. On day two of my course, Dan and his colleagues take us on the cable car (or ‘tram’, as the Americans call it) to the summit of Lone Mountain. We’re not yet ready to tackle the Big Couloir, but as the tram ascends the mountain, we can see it spread out in all its glory on the mountain face beneath us. I watch as skiers far more experienced than me make their way slowly and carefully down the chute. ‘Tomorrow, that’s me,’ I think to myself with butterflies in my stomach and a nagging feeling of dread.

But first, I must prove myself on the marginally easier pistes that drop from Lone Mountain’s summit. I tackle runs with suitably ominous names such as Marx, Lenin, the Dictator Chutes and the Yeti Traverse – all double black diamond, all dotted with rocks and all exceedingly steep. We even descend a short but viciously tricky slope with rocks, trees and moguls. It’s not marked on the map, but Dan calls it ‘the mini C’. Halfway down I fall momentarily and barely manage to right myself. ‘Great preparation for the Big Couloir,’ Dan tells me when I reach the bottom, beaming with pride and dusted all over with snow. 

In Europe, resorts rank pistes from green and blue up to red and black. In the US, a green circle is for beginners, a blue square is for intermediate skiers, a black diamond is advanced and double black diamonds are for experts. But at Big Sky, a handful of the pistes are so perilous that the resort has created a whole new grade: triple black diamond. The Big C is one such piste. In fact, it’s so demanding that you need permission to embark on it; an avalanche transceiver and a ski partner are obligatory. 

As the resort’s ski patrollers explain, triple black diamond includes, ‘exposure to uncontrollable falls along a steep, continuous pitch, route complexity and high-consequence terrain’. I’ve been warned. And naturally – this being the most litigious nation on earth – I had to sign my life away on an ‘acknowledgment of risk’ form before taking on the run. 

Becoming increasingly nervous as my Big Couloir challenge looms, I do a quick bit of research. Although, like all resorts, Big Sky has witnessed the occasional death of a skier, it turns out no one has actually perished on the Big C. In 2021, one skier tumbled all the way down, but got away with a broken leg and shoulder. 

DOWN TO EARTH 

The next morning, I wake feeling slightly sick from apprehension. All 15 or so of our group take the tram back up Lone Mountain before edging our way to the drop-off point of the Big Couloir. As the least experienced, I go last. Lined up behind 14 others, I feel like a condemned inmate waiting for the executioner’s axe.

Finally, it’s my turn to go. I’d love to say that I descend with aplomb, but that would be a lie. I’m so nervous that my descent is more of a sideways shuffle than a stylish zigzag. I find it so steep that I make only the minimum of turns, scared in case I accidentally accelerate too fast, lose balance and tumble like a snowball. As Dan explains on the resort website, ‘One bad turn off the top or anywhere on the descent could mean a fall and potentially a slide down the sometimes slick surface to the bottom of the couloir.’ 

Nonetheless, I block any thoughts of danger from my mind. I descend slowly, gingerly, repeating to myself, ‘Stay calm, be confident.’ I work my way past the patch of rocks known as the cheese-grate and round the dog-leg. Finally, the 50- degree slope eases to 35 degrees, which lets me make more turns, pick up speed and arrive safely at the base of the piste. 

There’s applause and high-fives from the skiers who went before me. Dan smiles proudly. ‘I’ve seen grown men cry going down there,’ he says. 

For me, though, it’s just total relief. I’ve conquered the Big C. 

Dominic Bliss was a guest of the Dan Egan Steeps Camp (skiclinics.com) and Big Sky, Montana (bigskyresort.com)