4FRNT Skis

The first 4FRNT ski was built from a fence post, an old ski and scrap wood, according to Wikipedia's history of the brand, and Matt Sterbenz pressed it by hand in a Truckee, California garage in 2002. The company that grew out of it is now headquartered in Salt Lake City, and its support line answers on an 801 number.

Sterbenz was a professional skier who wanted skis made for freeride and freestyle. The brand says it was founded to break from the status quo, with product innovation and skier-driven design ahead of profit margins and corporate agendas. Wikipedia dates the move to a Salt Lake City headquarters to 2005, which would make the city its home for much of its life.

The exception was a few years in Vermont. In 2017 Jason Levinthal of JSkis bought 4FRNT, moved his businesses to Burlington and turned it into a direct-to-consumer brand, according to Unofficial Networks. In 2020 it was sold again, to a trio of freeride skiers who have kept it independent, and it is headquartered in Salt Lake City today. Charlie Johnson, one of the owners, has written that he first looked at the sale "just for fun," and that a few months later he and a group of friends bought it.

The skis lean on one idea the company calls the Multi Radius Rocker, a pre-bent profile it says lets the sidecut work like camber on firm snow. The MSP 99 was re-engineered for 2027 with a running surface 10 percent shorter and a ski 6 percent less stiff, which 4FRNT says makes the edge easier to engage and release. The Hoji, listed at $879, has a core that balances aspen and maple.

In August 2025 the brand sent customers an email that read more like a confession than a promotion. "We're a team of just 5 skiers," it said, and the company builds about 3,000 pairs a year. "We don't have a corporate parent or safety net, overseas factories, or big-budget ad campaigns." It blamed rough economics, higher material costs, expensive shipping and major brands flooding the market with deep discounts. It is unusual for a ski company to explain its own prices, and rarer to do it by listing what it lacks.

The brand's pages do not say where its skis are built today, so this listing is about where the company is run from. For Utah the connection is plain enough: 4FRNT has called Alta "integral to the 4FRNT family," and Sterbenz was on the guest list for its demo day there.