Welcoming people of color to the winter wonderland
More are on the trail to skiing and hiking the mountains
While Mardi Fuller is one of the first Black people to reach certain heights in the mountains of New England, her attention is focused on opening doors for other people of color to scale those spaces.
Fuller, 44, finished climbing New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-foot mountains in January 2021, becoming the first known Black person to do so in the winter. The backcountry adventurer from Boston is working slowly toward finishing the 67 4,000foot peaks of New England in winter, while spending much of her time volunteering with various organizations focused on inclusivity in outdoor recreation.
This February, she helped lead events at the Mt. Washington Backcountry Ski Festival and Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest, and continued to introduce Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) to uphill skiing on trips with Inclusive Ski Touring, a nonprofit based out of Mt. Abram in Greenwood, Maine, and Whaleback Mountain in Enfield, N.H.
“Skiing is predominantly a white sport, and backcountry skiing even more so, with the latest national data showing only 1.5 percent of skiers are Black,” said Fuller, who works as a volunteer leader for the nonprofit organization Outdoor Afro, and is a contributing writer to Outside Magazine, among other publications.
“Really, there’s a perception that it’s not for us, that we won’t be welcome in these mountain towns, which is based on some historical truth, leading to generational trends of how people spend their time outdoors and whether people of color feel they can build their own culture within these activities,” Fuller said.
Since 2017, the nonprofit Colour The Trails has sponsored programs in Canada geared toward inclusivity in outdoor spaces. Fuller spoke at the organization’s festival at Revelstoke Mountain Resort in British Columbia last December, and she said the hope is to continue developing a similar network in New England.
Volunteering with Inclusive Ski Touring for the second winter, Fuller recently went on ski tours for BIPOC individuals with a wide range of experience at Whaleback and Mt. Abram. The significant turnout and enthusiasm of the participants was encouraging.
“I had a number of people say to me that they wouldn’t have done this if not for the group,” said Fuller, who learned to ski three years ago and has been adventuring in the mountains for two decades.
“They wouldn’t have believed it was possible, and one person emailed me afterward and said, ‘I can confidently say that Saturday was one of the few times I felt proud to be Black and do what I love.’”
Not all those in attendance are new skiers. Lance Campbell, a mechanical engineer from Walpole, Mass., has been skiing for 14 years and backcountry skiing for three years. But he said he has often felt a lack of community when touring alone, and had people question his ability and knowledge based on his skin color.
Campbell said getting involved with these inclusive trips is a full circle moment for him, since he first learned how to ski with the Boston Ski Party — a nonprofit that introduces skiing and snowboarding to youth in the Greater Boston area.
“For me, it’s fulfilling because these are grown adults with the fundamentals and everyone still has a smile on their face,” said Campbell. “Even if they couldn’t pick up the skiing part, everyone said they wanted to come back right after. That’s the goal, to make it a more inclusive space.”
Through social media and a word-of-mouth network, Fuller continues to introduce more people to outdoor spaces, often making personal connections between mentees and potential mentors.
When it comes to skiing, the cost of lift tickets or gear can provide a barrier for entry, so she suggested looking for used equipment at Outdoor Gear Exchange in Vermont, or cruising Facebook Marketplace for those interested in acquiring a backcountry setup.
This past month, Fuller joined the Appalachian Mountain Club board of directors. Her work continues in the summer with inclusive hiking trips, and she is connected with several organizations that offer outdoor opportunities for members of the LGBTQ+ community and other groups.
“We underestimate the importance of culture making,” Fuller said. “We talk about explicit racism, which of course we need to eliminate, but we also need opportunities for persons of color to spend their free time in their outdoor spaces, where they can recover from how they’re exposed to racism in their day-to-day environment.
“A lot aren’t going to want to go into spaces that are predominantly white if they don’t have to. So we really want to broaden the appeal of these activities.”