Shifting

gathered in Aspen for their first Summit. Recently, Burton organized its own ‘Culture Shifters’

These Vermont skiers and riders share their perspective. By Lisa Lynn

On a warm day last spring, Zeb Powell – Stratton Mountain School alumn, X Games medalist, sponsored rider for Burton and Red Bull, and part-time Burlington, Vt., resident — got to co-host a party in Aspen, Colorado.

The guest list was a who’s-who of snowboarders, artists, and musicians: Rapper A$AP Ferg and DJ T.J. Mizell were there, along with hip hop artist Miranda Writes. Freestyle rider Rob Roethler and aspiring Olympic snowboarder Brolin Mawejje — a former refugee who hopes to represent Uganda at the next Olympics — attended, too.

Co-hosting the event dedicated to diversity were long-time sports commentator and TV host Selema Masekala and George Burton Carpenter, son of Burton Snowboard founders Jake and Donna Carpenter and a special projects manager at the company.

“I never get sappy but this is necessary,” T.J. Mizell said of the event. “My brother Jesse and I spent our whole lives feeling different on the mountain. Feeling like we always had something to prove being Black kids on snowboards. I always made it a point to pull down my mask in the lift line so that people knew there was someone there representing for our people. I didn’t have to do that this week. At 50-plus deep, the presence was so strong. My face still hurts from smiling so much! This is really the beginning of something so beautiful and so important. We’re doing our part to make sure the generations to come won’t ever feel not at home on these mountains.”

All told, the event, Burton’s second “Culture Shifters” event brought together nearly four dozen to celebrate diversity on snow. The third annual event is scheduled again for this April. “Where you come from and who you are is how you ride,” Masekala told Snowboard Magazine. “It’s how you dress. It’s how you express yourself on the mountain. The idea with Culture Shifters is to expand the landscape of what that looks like.”

“It all started because T.J. Mizell is big into snowboarding. A few years earlier we did this collab with him and A$AP Ferg,” said Zeb Powell. “We were so touched by them and the energy they brought, plus them being out there, and realizing there’s not much of us around. It was like the stars aligning with this new culture and this new era. I was so inspired by the way they rode.”

For Powell, who has redefined snowboarding with fluid, gymnastic moves like his now-famous coffin slide that won him gold in the 2020 X Games Knuckle Huck, that says a lot. That run launched Powell, who was 20 at the time, into stardom. Now, as a recognizable face of snowboarding, he’s inspiring a new generation.

“I think the stereotype is ‘we don’t snowboard,” he said as he was waiting to board a plane to Aspen for this year’s X Games. “I’ve heard that before a lot. Now, I’m hearing ‘Hey I saw you in the X Games, I saw you do cool shit. I’m here because of you now.’ “

Burton’s George Burton Carpenter echoed that: “It would be misguided to think that the reason our slopes are homogenous is just an

Ijoined my National Brotherhood of Skiers club, the Thrill Seekers, in 1995 or 1996 after a ski trip to Smuggler’s Notch,” Sean Cottman says. “My cousin knew I skied so he put me in the car and said ‘You’re going to meet my ski club.’ We got to Smuggs and there were three other people I knew who had been trying to get me to go skiing and then I met 40 others, of which I maybe knew half. That’s how I joined the Thrill Seekers Ski Club.

I liked skiing but it was isolating unless I was going up with a known group. Often, it would be just me. You just wouldn’t see other people of color. People weren’t bad to me. No one was like ‘you shouldn’t be here.’ But when you’re 20-something, being the only Black guy in the lodge just didn’t feel good.

Fast forward now, 30 years later, and that’s not the case. I ski all the time by myself. I look around the mountains and I see a lot of diversity here.

Back in 2000, 14 of us rented a house in Rutland. Three of those people ended up buying their own houses there so when I go up, I always run into people I’ve skied with before, Black people who are not in NBS ski clubs but who are just out skiing. That level of change is extraordinarily meaningful. But one of the problems I’m seeing from the NBS and a club-building standpoint is that the kids and the grandkids of NBS founders don’t think they need the clubs to go skiing anymore. They’re like ‘I can go to VRBO and rent a condo.’

If anyone under 30 doesn’t see a need for the Black ski clubs, that means that we’ve been somewhat successful in integrating the sport such that Black and brown people don’t feel that you have to come together to feel welcome.

Part of our existential problem is how do we show value to a younger generation? Especially when they think ‘I don’t have to hang out with all the Black skiers because I’m a skier and I’ve been accepted.’

Why is that important? Well, the Brotherhood is an organization of clubs and we’re all volunteers but the money we raise goes to helping more people get into the sport. We have our Olympic Scholarship

Fund, and that’s gone to help athletes like Andre Horton and his sister Suki make the U.S. Team.

One of the reasons they retired at 24 or 25 was the cost. I remember Andre writing a letter saying ‘I’m 25 years old. I live with my mother and I can’t afford a car. I graduated from college and I just can’t afford to keep doing this.’ Back then, there really was not much in outside sponsorship dollars.

My club, Thrill Seekers, has been around for 32 years and we’ve been helping kids get into the sport. We partnered with Vail Resorts and have a five-week program at Hunter that’s 95 percent paid for. The cost starts at just $75 per kid (depending on what parents can afford) and includes the bus ride, skiing, instruction and rentals. Another NBS club, the Nubian Empire out of Albany, is doing a similar program bringing 52 kids to Mount Snow this season.

With help from the Warm Jackets Fund, we’ve also been operating a program taking kids from the city to Hidden Valley, in New Jersey, a youth-only ski and winter sports area started by Schone Malliet, that’s the home of the National Winter Activity Center. Their goal is to introduce 10,000 kids to snowsports annually, thanks to an endowment fund.

Part of getting more Black folks into skiing is just this: make it accessible and extend an invitation. Right now, our Thrill Seeker club is hoping to plan a Winterfest gathering for 2023/24 in either Vermont or Maine. We’d love to come to Vermont.