PG:Hi Miles, three sentences about you: Who are you, what do you do, and why are we doing this interview?
Miles Clark: My name is Miles, I'm 33 years old and from Northern California. I'm a small-time pro skier, a mountaineering guide, and a writer/editor with UnofficialNetworks.com. I started skiing at 18-years old and skiing has been the one constant in my life since that time.
PG:Most readers will surely ask, "how the hell is it possible to ski all year round?" - tell us your secrets - the real secrets! How can you make a living?
Miles: To be honest, it's tough to ski year-round and make a "living," but there are ways to do it. As of right now, I've lived in year-round winter for 3 years and I've used a bizarre concoction of occupations and unemployment to make it happen.
The first summer I came to Argentina to ski (2009), I had no job the entire summer and was accruing debt each and every day. But, while I was in Argentina that first summer, I met the owners of South America Snow Sessions and the owners of UnofficialNetworks.com. Those meetings paid off. The following summer (2010), I came back to Argentina and worked as a mountain guide for South America Snow Sessions. The summer after that (2011), I worked as local reporter, writer, as well as editor for UnofficialNetworks.com in Argentina.
PG:What's your timetable for a standard year?
Miles: I definitely don't have a "standard year" set up just yet. Since graduating college in 2001, I've worked as a carpentar, mountain guide, writer & bartender during the summer months. In the winter months, I've always made sure I have 6 months to do nothing but ski. My winters are actually pretty standard (Lake Tahoe, CA), but my summers have been extremely varied (Alaska, Washington, Argentina, San Francisco).
During winter, I move to Lake Tahoe, CA on December 1st. I ski in Tahoe (with a bit of ski oriented travel in North America) throughout the winter until June 1st. That hasn't changed since 2001. The past 3 summers I've spent skiing in Bariloche, Argentina. But before that, I'd spend 4, 5, or 6 months each summer working to make enough money to return to Tahoe and take 6 months off again.
Another semi-standard part of my year has been a fall surf trip. Each fall, I try to take a one month tropical surf trip. These trips generally have to be somewhere cheap. I've been lucky enough to surf in Indonesia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, California, and Hawaii on these trips.