PHOTO BY WADE McKOY/FOCUSPRODUCTIONS.COM

ISHPEMING, MI (Nov. 6) – Paralympic champions Chris Waddell and Sarah Will highlight a group of eight athletes and sport builders named for induction to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. They are joined by adaptive skiing pioneer Jack Benedick, legendary big mountain skier Doug Coombs, noted industry writer and instructor Stu Campbell, veteran ski jumping champion Ansten Samuelstuen, the father of southern skiing Sepp Kober and longtime U.S. Ski Team press officer and journalist Paul Robbins.

The late Doug Coombs may be the most recognizable skier in this year’s class for his appearances in many ski films in the 1990’s. A former ski racer from Montana State University, he is regarded by many as the most important skier of his generation in popularizing adventure skiing. He and his wife, Emily, started the first heliskiing operation in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains. He held steep skiing camps in Switzerland, France and Greenland. The complete expert skier, he won the first two World Extreme Skiing Championships. Although his skills far surpassed those of most of the people he guided, he had a capacity to make every skier who came into contact with him believe they could try bigger challenges. He died while attempting to rescue a friend in a skiing accident in 2006.

From the Bozeman Chronicle

Doug Coombs skis to a first-place finish in the first World Extreme Skiing Championships held in Valdez, Alaska in this 1991 photograph. Outdoors Magazine once called Coombs “the best skier in the world.” A master of steep skiing, he helped pioneer the sport of adventure skiing.

He won the first two World Extreme Skiing Championships, won the national Powder 8s three times and was a stuntman in Hollywood movies, even skiing a frozen waterfall for the film “Aspen Extreme.”

Coombs is one of eight skiers in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame’s 2009 class of inductees. The induction will take place during a ceremony in Colorado in April.