Descent of a woman

The piste stretched below me, smooth and steep, down to the valley floor, a white superhighway to the afterlife. In my mind's eye, I could see myself sliding, picking up speed, bouncing as I went, as graceful as a stale doughnut hurtling down a rubbish chute. Down at the foot of the slope I could just make out Nick Wilson's Cowboy Caf?, and I wondered what sort of impact I would have on the clientele when I got there.

The woman standing next to me had a tip. "If it looks too steep, you're looking too far downhill," she said. "You should be looking at where you're going to make your next turn - not way down the valley, or down to Jackson Hole." It was good advice: the moment I focused on what I had to do next, the slope felt manageable.

The woman next to me has plenty of first-hand experience of what steep is - 34-year-old Julie Zell was "Queen of the Hill" three years in a row, a title she gained by winning the World Extreme Snowboard Championships held annually in Valdez, Alaska. Competing meant tackling 45-degree-plus slopes, on which an ill-judged turn could lead to a hasty death. You can't call them pistes, for they are never groomed; in fact, there are no lifts - the only way up is by helicopter. Slopes like this would have lesser snowboarders - well, me for one - hugging the nearest boulder wailing for help.

I came across Zell last season at the Wyoming resort of Jackson Hole, where she was teaching on a Steep and Deep advanced snowboarding camp. She's doing the same this season, as well as heading a women-only camp called Snow Angels.

Zell thinks women have an unexpected advantage when it comes to snowboarding. "Men can muscle things more," she says, "especially if they do other sports. They tend to use pure brute strength to make their turns, to get themselves down the mountain." Women, on the other hand, are forced to learn to use the board more efficiently. "When you realise that you don't need a lot of brute strength, you can use a lot more finesse, and you can glide down the mountain with a lot less effort, and make it look really nice and fluid."

That was something I noticed on the videos that Julie makes, as a member of the Teton Gravity Research team. Filming has taken her to some of the scariest terrain around the world. On one video, called Harvest (on which she is listed as one of only two women athletes, alongside 19 men, including one "Sick" Rick Armstrong), she makes an elegant first descent of a slope with the wonderfully understated name Undulations - more like a gentle cliff, to most mortals. While some of the men's descents look like an energetic workout, Julie's has the effortless grace of a slow doodle on a piece of blank paper, as if she is merely dreaming the deliciously smooth lines on the slope.

The slopes are gentler at Jackson Hole, at least on the first day. "We go back to basics," says Zell, "and we rebuild skills from scratch." The course goes on to develop technique, control and balance; by the end of the fourth day, riders should be able to tackle steep or wooded or bumpy slopes with a lot more confidence, whether on the Steep and Deep or the Snow Angels course.

Zell believes there is a lot to be gained from women-only groups. "It's a great opportunity for women to learn in a less threatening environment. They can challenge each other more effectively, without the inhibitions they might have with men around."

What sets Zell's methods apart is her focus on riders' personality. "It's often not their technique that's holding them back from improving, but something deeper inside them," she says. "Tackling that can get them to shifting off the plateau, from the way they've been riding. I spend a lot of time watching riders, trying to pick up other things about them beyond their snowboarding skills."

This focus on personality derives from Zell's own experience, growing up in a highly competitive family in New York State, alongside five brothers and two sisters. "I was always scared to say I didn't understand, so I'd act as if I did, but then I'd have to shoot from the hip, because I had no idea what was going on. So when I see riders making mistakes, I try to think - what is it about the way they tick that makes them ride like that?"

After 14 years of competitive skiing, Zell moved to Jackson Hole, and 12 years ago picked up a snowboard for the first time - she hasn't looked back. It's a stunning place to ride, with some of the wildest US terrain outside Alaska. A single cable car whisks riders to the top of the 10,450-foot Rendezvous Mountain - a climb of 4,139 feet in only 10 minutes. The views over the spiky Teton Mountains of Wyoming are staggering, and the off-piste and backcountry skiing and riding down, legendary - into forest, gullies, open bowls, cliffs and couloirs. Stand at the top of one and, depending on your point of view, you're either looking at a death slide - or a highway to powder heaven.

Way to go

James Bedding flew to Denver with British Airways (0845 77 333 77), daily flights from Gatwick, connecting to Jackson Hole on United Airlines, from £484.60 return. The next Snow Angels camp is 24-27 January, next Steep and Deep 7-10 February. Each costs £468, including lift tickets, tuition, lunch, video feedback, demos and party, not accommodation, equipment and flights; see www.jacksonhole.com. For a tailor-made package, call Momentum Ski (020 7371 9111; www.momentumski.com).