EXTRAORDINARY TALES FROM A LIFE OF EXTREME SKIING
Arnie Wilson tries to keep up with legendary American skier Dan Egan as he shares his lifetime of skiing in the new book, 30 Years in a White Haze
Legendary extreme skier, Dan Egan
Dan Egan, one of America’s greatest extreme skiers, has some 40 years of professional skiing under his belt. Having starred in 14 Warren Miller films, Dan is also a film and documentary maker in his own right. His skiing life has taken him to so many mountain ranges across the world that it’s hard to keep up with him in his book, let alone keep up with him on the slopes. Believe me – I’ve tried!
30 Years in a White Haze is a raw, biographical account of Dan’s skiing life, co-written by him and ski writer Eric Wilbur. It covers the impact of his near-death experience on Mount Elbrus in 1990 and delves into the culture and evolution of extreme skiing.
Dan covers the ordeal he faced on Mount Elbrus, when he and his fellow extreme skier, his brother John, were caught in a storm while attempting to climb and ski the mighty peak, in tummy-clenching detail.
“Being lost in a storm with winds blowing over 100 miles per hour, trudging through five-foot-plus deep snow, and digging a snow cave in the battle to survive…
all formed internal reactions I couldn’t control for years afterwards.”
Dan explains how he survived the moment, then survived another moment, in order to survive another. This was how he would have to live in order to survive. By moments. By seconds.
“Thirty Years in a White Haze is my story of how skiing almost killed me, and saved me.”
Unsurprisingly, the experience proved transformative: “Walking off that mountain on May 3, 1990, was the beginning of my adult life as I know it today. I was 26 years old; for the next 30 years, I’ve had to learn to restructure the patterns caused by that traumatic experience. That trip has touched every aspect of my life.”
Away from death-defying ordeals, Dan paints a vivid picture of the carefree life of a pro ski bum. “The early years were wild fun,” he writes. “It was an impactful time in the ski industry when skiers went from straight to shaped skis, blue conservative skiwear to Day-Glo one-piece suits, and letting long hair fly, free of helmets.”
Since the mid-1980s, the Egan brothers have skied in many of the world’s remotest locations, chalking up over 50 first descents around the globe and launching off cliffs the height of 12-story buildings.
What drives Dan to these extremes?
“I jumped my first real cliff at Mad River Glen ski area in Vermont in the early 1980s,” he writes. “Since that day, I’ve been hooked on the thrill of heading towards the edge of a cliff and flying off it.
“I’ve come to call it ‘the eternal now,’ when everything slows down and then bang! You land in a pillow of snow. I got a taste of that feeling and wanted more.”
It’s not a feeling many skiers seek out to the same level as Dan, but he voices a sentiment I’m sure many can identify with: “Skiing fostered two main things for me: independence and confidence.
“The independence was forced on me by my two older brothers refusing to wait for a 10-year-old kid. The confidence grew over time, knowing one day I would catch ’em!”
Thirty Years in a White Haze
by Dan Egan and Eric Wilbur, available at Amazon from £23.99.