{"id":25091,"date":"2018-03-28T21:33:34","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T04:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/?p=25091"},"modified":"2020-05-22T13:06:28","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T20:06:28","slug":"skiing-and-snowboarding-need-new-recruits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/skiing-and-snowboarding-need-new-recruits","title":{"rendered":"Why Skiing and Snowboarding Need New Recruits"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bus stops at Cochran\u2019s Ski Area in Richmond, Vermont, and unloads 16 kindergartners from a local public school two miles away. Barbara Ann Cochran, a gold medalist whose family owns the hill, starts teaching an hourlong lesson on the beginner slope. It\u2019s a cold but sunny midwinter day, the perfect setting to introduce eager kids to the sport of skiing. The scene, part of a program called Snow Motion, repeats until every kindergartner\u2014203 kids\u2014in the local school district gets a chance to ski.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a comfortable atmosphere to try something new,\u201d says physical education teacher Brian Godfrey, who launched the Snow Motion curriculum five years ago. The program has grown from 50 fourth-graders to 400 students, kindergarten through fourth grade. Lessons run four days a week at Cochran\u2019s through January and February. Students don\u2019t pay for gear or instruction. \u201cWe remove other barriers, too. There\u2019s free transportation and it\u2019s during the school day, so 100 percent of kids participate,\u201d says\u00a0Godfrey.<\/span><\/p>\n

The program uses a grant from the National Winter Sports Education Foundation to buy rental gear from Killington Resort for Snow Motion students. The ski area charges schools just $5 a day for each child. Godfrey plans to expand Snow Motion to include every elementary student in the district. \u201cGenerations of Richmond families have never been to Cochran\u2019s,\u201d he says. \u201cI want to give them an opportunity to try what\u2019s around them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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A program in Richmond, Vermont, seeks to introduce kids to skiing. Photo Credit: Snow Motion.<\/p><\/div>\n

Although Vermont boasts 20 ski areas, only 9.9 percent of the state\u2019s population skis, according to SnowSports Industries America (SIA). It\u2019s not just Vermont, either: Across the country, due to a growing number of reasons, skiing and snowboarding simply don\u2019t have the appeal they once did. According to data from the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), snowsports participation numbers have been generally flat for the last 20 years, with no major increases despite rising population numbers. The obvious hurdles are cost and proximity\u2014it\u2019s expensive to ski and with more people living in urban centers, it\u2019s not easy to get to the mountains. But it\u2019s more than just that. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a hierarchy based on class and race that has to do with the history of the sport,\u201d says Aparna Rajagopal-Durbin, a founding partner of the Avarna Group, which works with outdoor groups on diversity, inclusion and equity. \u201cThese barriers make it really hard to bring in new folks. But that doesn\u2019t mean the industry should stop trying.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Warmer winters and decreased snowfall are sending people elsewhere for outdoor recreation. Families aren\u2019t passing the tradition of skiing and snowboarding onto their kids and besides, children these days have an endless stream of other sports and engagements. People are already overbooked with other commitments and snowsports can feel too time-consuming. <\/span><\/p>\n

When it snows a bunch, people go skiing. <\/span>SIA\u2019s 2017 participation study<\/span><\/a> showed a 5 percent increase in winter sports participation last season from the year prior, with some 24.7 million Americans taking part in alpine or Nordic skiing, snowboarding and snowshoeing. \u201cWhen it snows, everyone wins, and you always see spikes in the numbers,\u201d says SIA President Nick Sargent. \u201cCalifornia was back on the map. They had been in a drought situation for five years, and last year was an epic winter.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

But when it doesn\u2019t snow? Numbers dip (see, for example, the <\/span>latest findings<\/span><\/a> from a recent Protect Our Winters study). The snowsports industry is realizing it needs to grow and remain relevant\u2014no matter what weather the winter brings\u2014in order to survive. Vermont\u2019s Snow Motion program represents an increasing industrywide effort to get more people, across all ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds, into the sport. Why? Because growing the sport and reminding people it\u2019s still a fun thing to do is critical to securing its economic future and making it a sport that generations can continue to enjoy. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty years ago, Ski Utah, a trade organization that promotes skiing in Utah, introduced what they called a \u201cpassport\u201d to give in-state fifth-graders free access to nearby resorts. Other nonprofit and tourism organizations followed suit, and today, 11 more passports are available from Idaho to Maine, serving kids from fourth to seventh grade. Since 2009, NSAA has promoted January as Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month. This year, more than 100 resorts tailored rental and ski school packages to first-timers; the program has delivered 900,000 lessons over the last decade.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ski resorts are working with nonprofits like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the YMCA and SOS Outreach to get young people from urban centers like Denver, Salt Lake City and Seattle into the mountains. SOS Outreach, an organization that\u2019s helped more than 50,000 youth experience the outdoors since the organization\u2019s founding in 1993, offers free, learn-to-ski programs in Colorado, California and Washington and in 2017, they launched a new program aimed at getting at-risk youth from Detroit on skis at Mount Brighton, Michigan.<\/span><\/p>\n

At SOS, the main goal isn\u2019t to convert these people into skiers\u2014although SOS Outreach Development Director Rebecca Gould says many of their participants end up cultivating a love for the sport and some even wind up working in the outdoor industry\u2014but rather to offer opportunities, provide mentorship and boost confidence in underserved youth populations. \u201cThe mental and physical health benefits of skiing and snowboarding are undeniable,\u201d says Gould. \u201c<\/span>We are enhancing the sense of belonging of participants and learning to work together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In New Jersey, a defunct ski area reopened as the nonprofit National Winter Activity Center in 2016. CEO Schone Malliet says he\u2019s worked with Tri-State youth groups to get 4,000 kids on snow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI moved from fear to enjoying the sport to being a student of it. The key to not just growing but sustaining lifelong participation is community.\u201d<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Take Malliet\u2019s learn-to-ski story, for example. A former Marine captain from the Bronx, his first ski experience wasn\u2019t positive. Colleagues brought him to Park City, Utah, and immediately took him to the top of the mountain. He had improper gear, like jeans and thin gloves, and no lesson. He was turned off from the sport. <\/span><\/p>\n

But later, while living in California, he reconnected with skiing\u2014and stayed involved in it\u2014through the National Brotherhood of Skiers, which started as a club for African Americans 43 years ago, and now counts 3,500 members in 56 clubs nationwide. \u201cI moved from fear to enjoying the sport to being a student of it,\u201d Malliet says. \u201cThe key to not just growing but sustaining lifelong participation is community.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

At Echo Mountain, the closest ski area to Denver and one of the most affordable resorts in Colorado\u2019s Front Range, new owners are focused on offering full gear rentals, including items like jackets and pants, at a reasonable price. It\u2019s $35 for an adult full-rental package, including skis, boots, poles and a helmet, which is helping to draw in visitors and families who might not otherwise try skiing. \u201cA surprising number of folks come to see Denver without a lot of winter gear, much less plans to go skiing,\u201d says Echo Mountain general manager Frederick Klaas. \u201cThis way, you don\u2019t have to commit the whole day or a couple hundred dollars. It\u2019s a great way to augment a vacation and try a new activity.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Companies like Burton Snowboards are working with schools to get more kids on snow. Photo Credit: Burton.<\/p><\/div>\n

Gear manufacturers are doing their part, too. In 2014, Burton Snowboards partnered with Vermont resorts and schools to develop physical education curriculum called the Riglet Program. Ski companies like Head and Elan have offered first-timer gear packages at major discounts through learn-to-ski programs at resorts like New Hampshire\u2019s Loon Mountain and Minnesota\u2019s Afton Alps.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe these efforts are paying off? NSAA reported 54.8 million resort visits in 2016\u201317, a 2.4 percent increase over the 39-season average. A slight bump, for sure, but growth nonetheless.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mary Erickson, executive director of the Doug Coombs Foundation, a nonprofit in Jackson, Wyoming, that offers free snowsports programs to the area\u2019s low-income children, says she\u2019s seeing more effort in recent years to make skiing more approachable\u2014and it\u2019s working.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big movement within the outdoor recreation community to try and diversify. They realize the demographics of the country are changing, and they need to become more accessible and welcoming if they\u2019re going to survive,\u201d says Erickson. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really important to create opportunities for kids to just be kids together. Skiing is a tool to make kids feel more a part of their community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bus stops at Cochran\u2019s Ski Area in Richmond, Vermont, and unloads 16 kindergartners from a local public school two miles away. Barbara Ann Cochran, a gold medalist whose family owns the hill, starts teaching an hourlong lesson on the beginner slope. It\u2019s a cold but sunny midwinter day, the perfect setting to introduce eager […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":25093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[727,59,265,364],"internal-tag":[1683],"class_list":["post-25091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snowsports","tag-latest-posts","tag-ski","tag-snowboard","tag-snowsports","internal-tag-pre-redirect-snowsports"],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/skiing-and-snowboarding-need-new-recruits","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Why Skiing and Snowboarding Need New Recruits","url":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/skiing-and-snowboarding-need-new-recruits","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/snowsports\/skiing-and-snowboarding-need-new-recruits"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/CourtesySOSOutreach2.jpg?resize=150%2C150","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.rei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2018\/03\/CourtesySOSOutreach2.jpg?fit=800%2C488"},"articleSection":"Snowsports","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Flandreau"}],"creator":["Michelle Flandreau"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Uncommon Path \u2013 An REI Co-op Publication","logo":""},"keywords":["latest posts","ski","snowboard","snowsports"],"dateCreated":"2018-03-29T04:33:34Z","datePublished":"2018-03-29T04:33:34Z","dateModified":"2020-05-22T20:06:28Z"},"rendered":"