Ben White – Creator of White Cloud Adventures
Ben White moved to Salt Lake City from Massachusetts in 2011 in the pursuit of higher education at the University of Utah and higher adventure in the Wasatch. His favorite activities include skiing, paragliding, mountain biking, and rock climbing, all of which can be done in a single day in Little Cottonwood Canyon near his house.
A life-long skier, Ben comes from a racing background and dove headfirst into skiing in the backcountry the year before he moved to Utah. Inspired by Chris Davenport’s project of skiing the 14ers in Colorado in a single year, Ben set out to ski all 48 of the New Hampshire 4000 footers in a single ski season. This ignited and enforced his passion for adventure in the mountains. Since living in Utah, he has taken numerous avalanche courses and put those skills to use on some of the most exciting ski runs around. Some have seen less than 10 ski descents, and he has skied 14 of the 50 Classic Ski Descents of North America.
In 2014, Ben took up paragliding under the instruction of Super Fly. He then quickly took his interest of flight to launching off some of the most inspiring peaks around both on skis and on foot. After putting in a passionate number of hours in the air, he became an instructor in 2017. After working for Super Fly for two years, Ben opened White Cloud to provide paragliding instruction to those who have a shared sense of adventure. Along the way, he has written a few articles for the USHPA Pilot magazine among other publications.
While at the University of Utah, Ben studied geology and atmospheric science. His independent research on the resonant frequency of the natural arches in Moab earned him the Undergraduate Researcher of the Year award in 2016. The convenience of being able to collect data in the field and recreate immediately after was hard to beat. Sometimes while hiking with friends, he has to be reminded to keep his feet moving instead of looking at an interesting rock or an interesting cloud.
After attending the University of Utah, Ben’s passion for flight led him to general aviation. With an instrument rating in single engine aircraft, Ben surrounded himself in a dynamic environment in which decision making is paramount.
