I’ve done a lot of skiing illustrations for outdoor magazines like Utah Adventure Journal and Ascent Backcountry Snow Journal, but this is the first time I did an illustration of someday skiing down a sand dune in the Sahara desert! Ascent publisher Paul Oelerich asked me to do a t-shirt design for him after his recent trip to Morocco. He had originally planned on the more traditional mountain skiing, but due to a lack of snow, he decided to improvise and ski the Sahara instead.

Turns out sand dune skiing is really a thing. And, yes, people really do ski while wearing headscarves and Berber robes while their camels lazily gaze into the distance. I couldn’t be happier to get to illustrate a ski scene that takes place somewhere other than a field of white snow.