With the legendary Wasatch Mountains for a backyard, he has specialized in descents that involve cliffs, narrow couloirs, slopes steeper than 50° and huge, exposed alpine faces. His passion for skiing has resulted in over 50 first descents and numerous repeats of existing test pieces. Many of these have been documented in his book, The Chuting Gallery - A Guide to Steep Skiing in the Wasatch Mountains, which was the first book of its kind devoted entirely to skiing expert backcountry terrain.

Pinball Alley

In 1995 he and Mark Holbrook became the first Americans to ski the 5,200' 50° Messner Couloir from Mt. McKinley's 20,320' summit. A month later, they followed that with a descent of the Ford/Stettner Couloir on the Grand Teton, which is considered to be the premier Ski Mountaineering challenge in the US, having had only a handful of descents since it was first done over 20 years ago.

In 1997, along with three other partners, he linked turns down Mt. Rainier's Mowich Face to establish one of the most continuously steep ski descents in America. In 1999, he and Mark Holbrook became the only people to have repeated this route, this time with severely icy conditions. In the realm of established test pieces, McLean and Holbrook captured the second descent of the Mendel Couloir (a popular alpine ice climb) which stood for over 12 years as the hardest descent in California.

More recently, McLean and Hans Saari completed the second descent of the notoriously committing Hossack/MacGowan route on the northeast ridge of the Grand Teton. This route has repelled 10-15 attempts and has fatal fall consequences on most of its 3,000 feet.

While overshadowed by his skiing accomplishments, McLean remains an active rock climber and is currently on-sighting 5.11 rock climbs. He has five El Capitan ascents to his credit (three under the tutelage of Alex Lowe) as well as having climbed Half Dome, eight walls in Zion National Park and many desert towers. As a means of getting up potential ski routes, he has climbed many of the classic peaks in America, including Mt. Rainier, Mt. Shasta, the Grand Teton, Mt. Whitney and numerous others.

Aside from The Chuting Gallery, McLean's writings and photographs, or articles pertaining to him, have appeared in Couloir and BackCountry Magazine, the Black Diamond and Patagonia catalogs, Powder, Fall Line, Rock & Ice and Climbing magazines. He is a guest speaker at backcountry skiing workshops and avalanche seminars, as well as a frequent slide shows presenter.

A product designer by profession, McLean has worked for Black Diamond Equipment for nine years. During that time he has created such products as the Hotwire, Livewire and Enduro carabiners, the Whippet Self Arrest Pole, the Pecker piton, the Talon hook, the Single Stem Camalots and the Shrike Ice Axe. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1985, is single, and has one very large Bernese Mountain Dog named Otto.