I knew I was in for a ski trip unlike any other I’ve ever experienced before I even arrived in Big Sky, Montana. My mom (my favorite travel companion) and I were en route to the 2024 National Brotherhood of Snowsports (NBS) summit, and as newbies, we didn’t exactly know what to expect, but to say we were giddy was an understatement. Cut to our layover in Chicago, where we awaited our flight to Bozeman among dozens of Black people in their winter finery: personalized ski jackets, floor-length fur coats, and fashionable Stetsons. I leaned over and whispered to my mom, “No one does it like us.”
The vibes were high. We all knew why we were there, and we were ready to take up space in one known for its lack of diversity. The need for community among Black skiers within an overwhelmingly white sport is about the same as it was in the early 1970s. According to the 2023 U.S. Downhill Snowsports Participant Demographics survey conducted by the National Ski Areas Association, 88.1 percent of US skiers in the 2022–23 season were white, while 1.5 percent were Black.
The NBS has been working on creating community for more than 50 years. Founded in 1972 by lifelong skiers Ben Finley and Art Clay, the first NBS Summit brought together 13 Black ski clubs from across the country “to identify and discuss problems and subjects which were unique to the Black skiing population, [to] ski and socialize,” according to Finley. The first gathering took place in Aspen, Colorado, in 1973, with more than 350 Black skiers in attendance, and today the group has grown to include more than 60 ski clubs that meet annually at various resorts in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
“I had never in my life skied with more than two or three black people,” says Henri Rivers, the NBS president and a lifelong skier who began skiing as a child in the Catskills, where his parents owned a bed-and-breakfast that catered to the Black political figures of the time, including Dick Gregory, Stokely Carmichael, and Shirley Chisholm. By high school, Rivers skied competitively and attended his first NBS summit in 1996, in Innsbruck, Austria.
“We didn’t have social media back then, so what I was doing in New York, somebody was doing in Chicago or in Colorado, but I had no idea that they existed,” he says. “When I saw all of us on the mountain, it really opened my eyes to the fact that I wasn’t alone and that these other people were living the same situation, thinking that they were the only ones. The summit was just so rewarding, refreshing, and invigorating. It was unbelievable.”
I found myself tearing up during the summit’s opening ceremony and parade, as hundreds of Black skiers processed through the base of Big Sky Mountain Village in their matching ski suits.
Describing one’s first NBS summit as invigorating is exactly the right word. As someone who has skied around the world since age 8, I can count on one hand the times I’ve been among more than five other skiers that looked like me. It’s no wonder I found myself tearing up during the summit’s opening ceremony and parade, as hundreds of Black skiers processed through the base of Big Sky Mountain Village in their matching ski suits.
There was the Blazers Ski Club from Philadelphia in their vibrant red and yellow jackets; 4 Seasons West Ski Club from Los Angeles, where NBS co-founder Ben Finley is a member; and the audience favorite, Jazz Ma Tazz Ski Club from New Orleans, who threw Mardi Gras beads to the crowd and blew whistles as they marched in their purple, green, and gold ski suits.
Deanna Teasley, left, represented the BIPOC Mountain Collective ski group from Seattle at the summit. Writer Shayla Martin, right, made it to the Big Sky sign.
Photo By Shayla Martin
“When you grow up skiing and you’re the only Black family or person out there, you just don’t expect to see certain things or hear the music that we listen to, and you don’t really get to have a shared experience with someone else,” says Chinelo DeBrady, a first-time attendee to the NBS summit in Big Sky. He has since joined his NBS regional club, the Blazers Ski Club. “But on this ski trip, the happy hours were filled with people who look like me dancing and having a good time. I never could have imagined mixing Black culture with ski culture, and it really felt good to see us in a space where we’re not customarily seen, being so free and at ease. It was so surreal and so fun.”
That feeling of ease and belonging on the slopes is something NBS works hard to give underrepresented children all over the country, thanks to winter outreach programs that sponsor ski and snowboard trips at the regional and local levels. This ski season, 14 clubs will each bring between 50 and 130 children to various slopes across the country for ski and snowboarding lessons. Perhaps I’ll see them at a similar Beyoncé-themed après-ski happy hour at an NBS summit 15 years from now.
One could argue that the socializing and the fellowship of the slopes are just as important as the ski terrain when it comes to NBS, and the upcoming 2025 summit in Keystone, Colorado, is no exception. The “Legends and Legacy”–themed event will be held February 22 to March 1, 2025, and will feature the annual gospelfest, with a Sunday sermon from a guest pastor and a gospel concert from the NBS choir; a Sneaker Ball (where gala formality meets fresh kicks); and an evening excursion during which guests will take a horse-drawn sleigh through Soda Creek Valley to dinner at an 1800s-era historic homestead.
Then, of course, there’s the fantastic skiing and snowboarding on 140 trails that span more than 3,100 skiable acres. Although the beginner terrain is on the lower side, at 12 percent of the total acreage, NBS attendees who don’t ski at all (like my mother, who made tons of friends at the various après-ski happy hours whom she’s since welcomed to our home) can still enjoy Keystone’s winter magic with mountaintop tubing, ice skating, and an enclosed gondola ride to the top of Dercum Mountain.
The feeling of belonging and camaraderie among other skiers at an NBS summit is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced on the slopes—and it left me with lifelong friends. As first-time attendees in 2024, Mom and I will unquestionably return.
