Over Block Break 5, Colorado College Outdoor Education (OE) organized its second annual “All Adventures Welcome: Skiing” trip for students of color, aimed at reducing barriers to winter sports and creating a more inclusive outdoor culture on campus.
The program brought eight students of color from varying experience levels to Monarch Mountain for two days of ski lessons with local instructors, followed by a full day on the slopes led by OE guides Maddy Spark ’27 and Emmanuel Mercedes ’28. For many participants, it was their first time skiing.
First launched in 2021, the initiative grew out of OE’s Diverse Climbers program, which aimed to center students whose identities have been historically marginalized in outdoor recreation. Associate Director Rachael Abler and several other student leaders proposed expanding the model to include skiing, as the first ski trip under this initiative took place in 2025.
OE Director Chris Burnett said students of color face three main barriers in skiing: historical, cultural and economic.
“Historically speaking, students of color have been denied access through the long history of racism and white supremacy that is interwoven in the skiing and outdoor recreation industry,” Burnett said. “Through inflationary costs and limited access to resources, the sport has restricted participation for people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.”
He also said that representation affects students’ willingness to try the sport.
“When you don’t see anyone who looks like you participating in skiing or snowboarding, it creates a sentiment of not belonging.”
Burnett added that this effect is often exacerbated at predominantly white institutions like CC, where students of color may feel subtle exclusion and pressures to navigate unfamiliar sociocultural norms.
OE Assistant Director Andrew Harrow echoed Burnett’s concerns about the barriers students of color face in skiing, while also highlighting pressures unique to CC students.
“CC has a reputation for being an outdoorsy school, and access to winter sports is often assumed of students,” Harrow said. “In reality, social, financial and resource barriers prevent many students from participating in activities that make up the perceived core of the idealized CC student.”
Burnett and Harrow revealed that funding for the trip came from multiple sources, including the Ritt Kellogg Memorial Fund, allocations from the CC Student Government Association and OE’s general operating budget.
The director also said that success for the program went beyond filling spots on the trip, but to build long-term representation for different identities among OE’s leadership and participants.
Emmanuel Mercedes ‘28 and Valéria Lopez ‘29 attended the trip. Mercedes, who served as a trip leader alongside Maddy Spark ‘27, had clear hopes for the program from the start.
“I understood the importance of the trip was to serve people of underrepresented communities in engaging in the outdoors,” he said.
Although Mercedes has now become an experienced skier and snowboarder, he did not grow up with easy access to the sport. Originally from the Caribbean and later living in New York City, he said skiing was never part of his upbringing. Even now, he relies on programming and shared gear to get on the slopes. Because of that, guiding this trip felt personal. One of his favorite moments came when skills began to click for participants.
“Seeing how quickly it clicked for some of the students: giving little instruction and demonstration, then suddenly they started moving their feet better and turning more effectively while catching more speed,” Mercedes said.
Lopez, a participant on the trip, described her first time skiing as both challenging and exciting, adding that she felt grateful for the opportunity. On the drive to Monarch, she described feeling “a nervous excitement,” unsure of what skiing would be like and how she would fare.
“Being on the slopes felt slow at first because I expected to go straight into skiing down the mountain,” she said. “But I was grateful to learn the fundamentals with an instructor. Once I got the hang of turning and stopping, I was excited to try new slopes.”
Lopez said the BIPOC-centered space made her feel more comfortable taking on the challenge. She added that before the trip, she often felt distanced from ski culture at CC.
“At CC, I naturally assumed that most people ski or at least have,” Lopez said. “Before this trip, I did not, which made me feel othered.”
Now, she said, she would encourage hesitant students to apply next year.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ski with other BIPOC students for free,” Lopez said.
As OE continues expanding its inclusion-focused programming, Burnett and Harrow emphasized that the ski trip is only one part of a broader effort to reshape outdoor culture at CC. Together, they announced the OE Cultural Ambassadors initiative, led by students Alondra Valdez ‘26 and Galy Berthon ‘26, geared towards deliberately connecting BIPOC students with BIPOC OE staff in order to make involvement in outdoor recreation more approachable.