Oh, and I can’t forget that other time, at a rowdy Andorran après bar. I was engaged in a drunken karaoke rendition of “Juicy” by The Notorious B.I.G. with a member of a big, friendly group of fellow Brits we’d met, and then froze, with shock and disbelief, as a white stranger locked eyes with me and proceeded to drop the n-word in the chorus with uncensored, grinning relish. “If you don’t know, now you know.” And I really, really did.

The reality is that being an ethnic minority on a ski resort can be isolating. These vignettes only hint at the edgy existence – a world of befuddled looks, microaggressions and outright bigotry, but, also, flashes of galvanising solidarity with those that look like you – that all skiers and snowboarders of colour will be familiar with. And they also help explain why, in the US alone, it’s estimated that 88 per cent of skiers are white. A 2021 diversity and inclusion survey in the UK described the current snowsport audience as “unrepresentative of Britain as a whole”. Winter leisure’s pointed exclusivity, prohibitive pricing and subtly coded atmosphere has yielded a stubbornly monocultural environment with a pervading whiteness that has absolutely nothing to do with snow cover.

But, thankfully, there is also hope. Because a new generation of black and minority ethnic winter sports lovers and collectives on both sides of the Atlantic are trying to shift the narrative and, as some are wont to put it, bring some much-needed colour to the mountains.

“My first experience of skiing, I was in a group with just one other black girl,” says Dr Wenona Barnieh, a black doctor and entrepreneur who first caught the snowsports bug while at university. “So that meant we were definitely noticeable on the slopes. But mostly it was positive. Just people that were curious and like, ‘Oh my gosh. How are you?’ And I’m still friends with a lot of the people I met on that trip.”

It was only on a subsequent 2018 trip to Chamonix, in the company of a few more black friends, that this friendly curiosity sharpened into something that felt a little more uncomfortable. “The microaggressions were actually voiced to us on that trip,” Barnieh says. “I try not to dwell on these things, but there was one person who was like, ‘Who told you about skiing?’”

Elsewhere, Barnieh’s other friends on that holiday have spoken of people asking them to pose for photographs because their blackness was such a novelty. The line between amiable social interest and prejudiced power play can be thin, but it is very much there, and always perceptible to those of us accustomed to having our presence challenged and our difference insidiously highlighted.

Nonetheless, when Barnieh and her crew of friends posted photos from Chamonix on social media, there was an unexpected surge of interest from black acquaintances who had never skied previously. “Initially, it was just friends of friends saying, ‘Next time you go, I want to come,’” she says. This demand – allied with memories of what a naggingly unwelcome place the mountains can at times be for ethnic minorities – provided a lightbulb moment. And so, in late 2019, Mount Noire was born: a travel company run by Barnieh and that original group of friends that organises annual trips aimed specifically at the black community.

What Mount Noire offers really, as Barnieh notes, is help navigating what can be a bewildering world of lift passes, exorbitant accommodation costs, cumbersome, expensive gear and arcane Alpine language and traditions. But, perhaps more than that, it is a network to connect skiers and snowboarders with a community they wouldn’t have been able to find in another era.

“There’s lots of my closest friends that, no matter how much I tell them that it’s really fun and not that cold, they will just never get on skis,” Barnieh says, with a chuckle. “So, we wanted to make sure that this was a platform where, if you didn’t have anyone in your community or among your friends that you could go skiing with, then we can connect you with people you can vibe with.”

This spirit of connection, and strength in numbers, was also a founding tenet of the National Brotherhood of Skiers: a hugely influential collective of African American snow enthusiasts formed in 1973 amid the Black Power movement. They caused such a stir among racists at their first Aspen gathering that the National Guard was put on standby, presumably to mediate any ensuing trouble between black and white skiers. And it is part of what has precipitated the emergence of other inclusive outdoor groups like Denver’s BIPOC Mountain Collective and London’s Flock Together.

But Barnieh’s point about how reluctant some of her black friends have been to even consider joining her on the slopes is an important one. Largely because it highlights the fact that some of the notions around winter sports being inherently white, or not for people from certain backgrounds, come from those communities themselves. I have personally experienced family members who question why this dangerous, expensive, elitist hobby would even be appealing.

The feeling of being excluded from something for so long, as experienced by ethnic minorities and Jewish communities, has led to understandable protectiveness and apprehension. What’s more, cultural and class stereotypes related to skiing – born from the fact that it emerged from Alpine and Scandinavian traditions as well as the holidaying English aristocrats of the early 20th century – are so well-established that they are hard to push against or refute.

Barnieh admits that one of Mount Noire’s toughest challenges has been convincing underrepresented groups that, yes, skiing is for them. “The most surprising factor has been dealing with barriers and stereotypes within the black and ethnic minority community,” she says. “It is an adventurous sport in the sense that it isn’t traditional for many communities in the UK. So, it’s about convincing people with a package that’s cost effective and telling them you don’t have to go really fast or even ski every day.”

They achieve that cost effectiveness by cutting bulk deals with lift operators and hotels in order to pass on discounts to their customers. A move that, though it may sound basic, makes what can feel like a rarefied and roped-off world feel that bit more accessible.

And, on top of this, rather than merely seeking entry into the world of winter sports, platforms like Mount Noire are looking to change them from within. This applies in the obvious way of making resorts feel more ethnically representative and inclusive (Barnieh notes a recent trip to Val d’sere where “people of other ethnic minorities and other black people were coming over to say they loved our outfits and just really happy to see us”).

But it is also manifesting in the sense that different backgrounds, interests and heritages can only enrich a social scene that often defaults to a somewhat staid Alpine whirl of fondue, sparkler-topped champagne bottles and white seasonnaires stomping their ski boots to house music. One of Barnieh’s favourite moments of Mount Noire’s relatively brief, Covid-ravaged existence was an “Afro Ski” club takeover, in spring 2022, where they brought the unfamiliar whump of Afrobeats and South African amapiano to a glitzy French après bar.

“To see everyone just dancing, having a good time and enjoying themselves, and people who had never previously stepped on skis tell us that they were coming back next year was absolutely my top thing,” Barnieh says. “Just to see that joy was amazing.”

Spreading the joys of winter sports – juddering up on the first chairlift beneath a bluebird sky, the knife-edge, thigh-burning thrill of carving through fluffy, fresh powder, clinking hard-earned beers at a ski-in bar – is, fundamentally, what this is all about. Everyone should be able to experience those thrills without being made to feel uncomfortable or out of place. An environment can only be enhanced by a greater variety of life stories and perspectives. And just because a mountain has stood for millennia, does not mean it can’t move with the times.