When I first started as an intern at SnowBrains 6 years ago, it was solely because I was sticking to two of the only things I knew at the time: skiing and writing. I was a 22-year-old college student who recently came back from a study abroad program in Colombia trying to figure out what do with this whole being-an-adult and finding-my-way enterprise while I took classes at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and worked as a boot fitter in Deer Valley. Through a series of chance encounters, I eventually got connected with Founder and CEO of SnowBrains Miles Clark, someone who I noticed right away had a massive skiing problem. Chatting with him on a cold, classic late-spring powder day on the chair at Snowbird, I knew I was going to fit right in. Plus, I needed the college credit for my journalism major, which I had elected after changing majors about five times in the three previous years of school. I figured, hell—I enjoy writing anyway, and the major is pretty chill, so I could probably ski a lot. So I applied for the internship described to me on a 7-minute chair ride by this crazy, charismatic, Californian guy before he put on his GoPro and skied off into the blue. Little did I know where it would take me years later.
Over time, I’ve seen SnowBrains grow. SnowBrains has been around since 2013 when Miles started it in the spare time he had chilling in the hospital while he was there for his mother who was getting chemotherapy treatments for her cancer. I came on in 2019. The growth that I’ve seen since I boarded the ship hasn’t always been fast or obvious or linear, at least not until the last year or two, where I’ve witnessed our readership significantly increase and the industry begin to take note of our small little start-up. It’s true that often—in the British writer, scholar, and Christian thinker C.S. Lewis’s words, who is best known for writing The Chronicles of Narnia:
“It feels like nothing changes day to day, but when you look back—everything is different.”
Everything certainly is different now, back from when I was a 22-year-old ski student and college bum, because this humble ski news platform is now ranked as the largest independent skiing media outlet in North America (and also Europe, thanks to the hard and consistent work from our Senior Editor Julia). But this is not because of me, or our wonderful, dedicated team, or Miles and his wild Patagonian/Antarctic/Alaska/ski 300-days-a-year lifestyle. Naw. Where we are at today is only because of you, our readers.
The past year has been our most exciting one to date. We’ve produced our first documentary film, 300, that documents the meaningful ski project set forth by our Founder and CEO to ski 300 days in one year after his mother died from cancer, produced almost entirely by our prodigious Creative Director Liam. We’ve informed more people about current events in the ski industry than ever before, with 250 million impressions across social media, fearlessly led by our Chief Operating Officer Steven, a hard-charging Brit who spends winters in Colorado and who has a knack for good powder skiing and fine-tasting beer. We’ve expanded our news reporting well into the East Coast, thanks to our determined Staff Writer Gregg, who hustles from ski area to ski area to find the most up-to-date and fascinating beat others have yet to cover. Then there’s Brent and Zach, some of the most consistent, top-level writing engines we’ve ever had, keeping news content flowing that is relevant, passionate, and true, along with the many other contracted members and interns in our strong, cherished, global ski-writing syndicate. And the team does this all while remaining independent—free from the straitjacket of corporate control or private equity. We do not shape our daily decisions for the likes of shareholders or sacrifice our soul in the name of financial growth.
The stories here are published because they matter to you, skiers and snowboarders across the globe, while ensuring that you can trust what you read. And we do this from the mountains themselves—not from behind desks in offices in crowded cities with parking garages and daily commutes and the dreaded ‘teams’ meetings. No; each and every single one of us is based in the mountains every winter, reporting from actual days on snow, in storms, on skin tracks, in lift lines, with our conditions reports reflecting the reality of a ski day and our weather forecasts serving the actual ski communities that we are apart of. After all, we ski the same snow that you do.
Here, we know—like so many of you, that skiing is a lifestyle. A community. A lifelong dance with the mountains that takes a hell of a lot of work to keep up with every winter on top of everything else in our lives. We cover places and stories that are not only commercially viable but are emotionally valuable; that delegate a space for our network of independent writers to publish meaningful work and, overall, contribute to a healthier snow industry media ecosystem: one that is broader and more inclusive to the skiing conversation. One that features little hills and small companies like ours that believe in an idea and are trying to make it because that is all they know. Just like how myself and each member of our team made it here in the first place.
So, before I shut my laptop and disappear into a blizzard for the holidays, I need you to understand something:
We cannot do what we are doing here at SnowBrains—i.e. produce meaningful content while skiing as much as we do—without each and every single one of you.Â
SnowBrains exists because skiing still matters deeply to people who live it. Not because it is trendy. We are here because you still care about snow, mountains, and honesty in a world that often moves too fast to notice any of that. We are built to inform and inspire you, who inspire all of us back daily. None of us are alone in this pursuit and each and every one of you readers that we get to meet along the way—on the chair, at the pub, or out in the backcountry—makes it all worth it.
I hope you finish this year feeling good and ski some fresh turns into 2026. I hope you enjoy the ride. Cheers. And thank you, from the SnowBrains team.
–Martin Kuprianowicz, SnowBrains Editor-in-Chief
