Alpine equity: How a Latino snowboarder is improving access to snow sports in Summit County

When KUNC senior managing editor Stephanie Daniel journeyed into the mountains to work on her podcast The Colorado Dream, she met Javier Pineda, a snowboard instructor and Mexican immigrant. She was reporting on the housing crisis in Summit County, which has had a major impact on Pineda’s life. But as is often the case with journalism, telling one story led to the discovery of another. 

Daniel learned that Pineda had launched a new program called Oso Outdoors where he provides free snowboarding lessons to Hispanic and Latino residents, many of whom are immigrants. 

“Oso Outdoors is unique in that Javier is bilingual and bi-cultural and he can teach his snowboarding classes in Spanish. When we talk about diversity, oftentimes it's just around race and ethnicity. But language is also a barrier,” Daniel said.

She sat down with In The NoCo’s Robyn Vincent to discuss her reporting that looks at how Oso Outdoors is helping to change the makeup of the slopes.