Extreme skiing is skiing performed on long steep mountainous terrain, typically from forty five to sixty or more degrees, or grades of 100 to 170 percent. The first practitioners include Swiss skier Sylvain Saudan, who made the first descent on slopes in the wiss, French and Italian Alps that were previously considered impossible. Doug Coombs, Shane McConkey, Seth Morrison, Glen Plake, David Kraft and Scot Schmidt are North American skiiers who popularized the event. These six were considered among the top 6 extreme skiers in the world during their prime. Extreme skiing in the U.S. took off in the mid 1980s after the movie Maltese Flamingo came out in 1986, and John Cummings’ book, Hallowed Be the Extreme, documented the lifestyle of extreme skiers. Because of the extremely long, steep slopes, and dangerous terrain, single mistakes at the wrong moment by some extreme skiers have led them to them to being seriously injured or killed.
Extreme ski videos are becoming increasingly popular as the sport gains popularity. These skiing videos are available for free in places like YouTube and other free video providers. These skiing videos are often short snippets of extreme skiing, because longer full length videos are too long for free online sites. Many of these skiing videos highlight people being injured in extreme skiing accidents, or particularly close calls on the parts of the skiers in the skiing video.
You can also buy extreme skiing videos for your home on DVD. These extreme sports HD videos have longer and more in depth skiing videos on them. These DVDs of skiing videos can be bought online from companies that specialize in videos of extreme skiing, or from companies such as Amazon that sell videos in general. There are also documentaries that tell the stories of the lives of extreme skiiers.
