 He attended Montana State University in Bozeman where he honed his skiing skills at nearby Bridger Bowl before becoming a fixture of the extreme skiing scene in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, helping to found Valdez Heli-Ski Guides (and the heliskiing industry) in Alaska in 1994, and twice winning the World Extreme Skiing Championship, in 1991 and 1993.Coombs married Emily Gladstone in 1992 and, in 1993, they founded "Doug Coombs Steep Skiing Camps Worldwide" in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.In 1997, the Coombs moved the business to Europe, and the company continues to operate today in La Grave and Chamonix, in the French Alps.