The National Brotherhood of Skiers Is Now More Relevant Than Ever

By their nature, skiers aren't anti-social but do tend to be independent. The thing is you don't need a partner or team or league in order to participate. And if you do go with a group, often it struggles to stay intact and will disperse early on once speed or powder or warmth tempts members away from its nucleus. Skiers are naturally self-indulgent; therefore we have that age-old phrase "No Friends on a Powder Day." But that doesn't mean skiers, generally-speaking, won't check on a fallen skier or share a chair or engage in conversation the entire ride up. More often than not it's the opposite. Skiers really want to talk and bond and compare things like equipment and terrain, at least up until disembarking at the top. However, despite that common bond, very few of us actually belong to any sort of organized group. On any given day, the hundreds or thousands of people at a ski resort do not belong to a formal ski club. Early February might be the only except to that rule, when one of the longest-standing ski clubs hosts its annual summit. The National Brotherhood of Skiers (NBS), which today is made up of over 5000 members, comes together to celebrate skiing unlike any other group out there.

Today the success of the NBS is not only remarkable for its longevity and headcount but also for the fact that it’s entirely made up of black skiers in an industry which has been unmistakably white since its inception. The first major ski boom happened in the U.S. between 1955-1965, when ski technology advanced and became more accessible, and its audience then has remained more or less the same as it is today. In spite of that, hundreds of ski clubs have formed but not one has been able to replicate this degree of success. But there were inklings of this kind of tight community before the NBS even became an official thing. For instance, during the first ski boom several black ski clubs were operating, like the Jim Dandy Club, but unlike other ski clubs at this time there was a greater sense of self-preservation for their formations. For some black skiers, it was also a time for discovering the sport on their own.

"I was the only black man in a 123-person town," said Henri Rivers, the current president of the NBS. "No family skiers. At age nine I found a pair of skis and wanted to try them on. The feeling was unimaginable—wow. It sparked a deep interest in me and I just stuck with it."

In 1973, Ben Finley and Art Clay plotted the first Black Summit in Aspen, where black skiers nationwide could converge and then ski together. 350 skiers showed up. This initial success prompted the formation of the NBS later that same year. And this past February, the group celebrated its 50th anniversary in Vail, Colorado, an accomplishment that prompted us to dig a little deeper into how this sort of ski club model is still relevant in 2023.

The success of any group is dependent on its members. One key characteristic of these members is having a high degree of openness. Often overlooked, skiing is an outdoor sport in which the participant hurtles downhill on thin planks, at high speeds, on an unregulated icy expressway amongst other high-speed skiers who are essentially wielding medieval weapons of their own.

"Most skiers, I'd say, regardless of their race, are pretty adventurous people," said Rose Thomas Pickrum, past NBS president from 2006-2008. "And because they're adventurous people, they're naturally more open to different people, cultures, experiences, locations."

Through the '70s and '80s, the NBS steadily grew due to attracting this kind of open-minded profile. More local and regional clubs started up—today there are 57 local clubs nationwide—and the annual summits began seeing attendance in the thousands. Each year, the organization selected a different premier ski resort as the host for its Black Summit. The summit in Vail in 1993 registered at 6000 people.

"My girlfriend invited me on a trip," said Peggie Allen, a past NBS president from 2016-2020. "At first I was like heck no! I was training for a marathon and hadn't skied before. You always hear things about people breaking their legs. But I went and couldn't believe the camaraderie. I was in my forties."

The camaraderie is so strong because the organization is completely made up of volunteers. At the annual summits, volunteers show up to fold t-shirts and hand out access bracelets and anything else needed to help out with the packed schedule of events. There's always parades, happy hours, and other events to keep people engaged throughout the week. It's this extent of dedication and organization that keeps their parties on time and unique and running deep into the night.

"My first summit was in Steamboat Springs in '89," said Andrea Yowman, past NBS president from 2002-2006. "There were parties in the garage. And I'm gonna be honest, the eye candy there, I was like, 'OH MY GOD.'"

Marriages and lifelong friendships have developed between a lot of members by way of the NBS, which later helped expose their children and friends to the sport, creating a sort of collective family. Like any strong family, its members take on roles and values are instilled and members are looked after. For instance, for the "never-evers," people who have not skied prior to attending a summit, the NBS takes measures to make sure they're suited up and safe and having a good experience.

"There's people who might go and not have a great experience and then never come back," Henri Rivers told me. "We make sure that's not the case for our members. We hold their hand for a little while before we let them go."

In addition to exposing the sport to more black skiers, the group's mission has also been to support black athletes onto the U.S. Ski Team. This mission statement was created shortly after the NBS formed in 1973. Almost thirty years later in 2001, NBS athlete Andre Horton won a FIS competition in Europe, the first black athlete ever to do so. Alongside partnerships with Vail Resorts and other major sponsors, membership dues go to help fund the Olympic Scholarship Fund, aid which helps finance the necessary training so their athletes can train and then compete at events like the X Games, Junior Olympics and the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Economics have always been the biggest hurdle preventing people from reaching the top of the mountain. The traditional ski club played a social role but also made this hurdle less steep and more accessible for skiers. Groups had greater access to discounts on expensive items like tickets, lodging, and transportation to the mountain. This provided the incentive for members to visit mountains other than their home resort. Cost is still a factor today, but in the unlimited era of Ikon and Epic passes, going skiing has never given as much freedom to the individual as the present.

"As skiers and riders," said Henri Rivers, "We need to learn how to make these passes work for us. Each year we try to pick one pass and plan trips around it so everyone can come."

A problem with many ski clubs today is marketing the economic incentive almost to a fault—$8 for a potluck dinner!—since budget alone isn't sexy enough to stir the passion needed for people to come out and join a ski club instead of going alone. The NBS definitely capitalizes on the group benefits but it doesn't stop there. At first glance, the success of the NBS may be gleaned from having dual missions; though at closer inspection the success is more likely because of their making these missions fun: what they like to call "partying with a purpose."

At the NBS's 50th anniversary in Vail, the attendance was disproportionately skewed towards older skiers. The group shares the same problem as other ski clubs as far as keeping their club relevant for younger generations. The organization has talented athletes in their teens, but how does it fill up the gap lacking in the 20-40 age demographic? Is today's problem a matter of apathy or that children are still averse to the idea of partying with their parents?

The solution may not be as simple as recruiting, which seems like a strategy best suited for the military or any group where the cause is probably not very fun. Like any ski club, the cause is very much fun, but the elusive part is a matter of recreating it as spontaneously and organically as how this one group did in 1973.

In today's treacherous landscape, rebranding or target marketing are a couple of the tools for the intention of engagement or loyalty. It's the typical artillery of larger corporations, who are devoted to their shareholders and whose intentions are to profit, and so the effects of these tools sometimes remain shallow, cosmetics on a brand's image.

The point isn't to discredit these tools and their effects—they could certainly draw more skiers to ski clubs—but if the goal is a community, which isn't for-profit and not intended as a one-time transaction, it probably requires something deeper and more sincere and may be described as a “pulse.” Plus for achieving the success the NBS had, that requires doing something novel, like a Black Summit, an event so unique and maybe even impractical that people pull out momentarily from their own self-interests and invest in the group instead, perhaps out of sheer awe.

The NBS is proof the ski-club model is not out of service. Every year hundreds of other ski clubs bring people together to enjoy this pastime, but the NBS adds in more for its members. For the present generation and ones to come, all it may take is one or two people with an innocent idea, even if it is unintentional.

"I guarantee you," Henri Rivers told me. "If you'd ask Art and Ben, they would've had no idea that they were going to introduce this many people to skiing."