Can You Recognize the Ski Resort That Inspired This Amazing Diorama?

Is your job driving you bonkers? Have you, perchance, considered building a miniature ski resort for relief?

If you answered yes, you’d be in good company with Michael Claflin, a lifelong skier and Utah resident who has spent around two years crafting a model mountain peppered with tiny recreations of real-life skiers, including Mikaela Shiffrin. The mini eventually took off online, garnering thousands or, on some posts, hundreds of thousands of views. Apparently, skiers like the slopes even when they’re tiny.

Part of the draw is Claflin’s silly presentation. He dangles from the ceiling, purportedly touching up the resort, alongside text that reads: “unemployed friend on a random Tuesday.” In other videos, he uses a different social media-ready hook: “I lost my mind and started building this miniature ski resort in my garage.”

According to Claflin, the latter tidbit is “75% true.” The project began in the winter of 2025, a time when he felt stifled by his job. He found it boring. He was burnt out. He wanted to inspire himself creatively. 

“I was just dead inside,” he said. “I just hadn’t been doing what lights me up for a long time.”

As he decided what to do, Claflin found inspiration in his family. His brother, Chris, is famous on TikTok for his intricate dioramas of fantasy realms, including Middle-earth. He’s also the founder of a cloak company—the sort you’d see at a renaissance fair or on screen in Lord of the Rings.

“I was like, you know what? I want to do something similar to that,” Claflin said. 

But instead of Balrogs or Gandalf, his idea would involve snow, lift towers, and a cozy A-frame cabin. 

While Claflin was focused on his corporate career, he’s long dabbled in the arts. As a kid, he painted small figurines from the tabletop game Warhammer with his brother and dad. More recently, one recurring project is making family Christmas cards that resemble tabloid covers. He also made the local news this summer when he crafted a minor viral sensation: a small version of a multi-colored whale sculpture in Salt Lake City. When the ski resort started, though, Claflin had never taken on a full-blown diorama.

“It was a disaster for months and months and months,” he said. 

He likened the experience to a spiritual journey. At times, Claflin felt the diorama was stupid. He also felt stupid himself for trying. But he’d made a promise: “I was going to just see it through to the end, no matter what,” he said. 

After all, Claflin thought, “If I don’t, I guess I’m just not a creative person, and I should forget about these little fantasies I have of making stuff and producing art.”

He pushed through. Somewhere around the eight-month mark, it started coming together and, Claflin said, “actually looking kind of cool.” Since then, it’s been fairly smooth sailing. And lots of fun.

The model resembles a ski resort where Claflin taught ski lessons for several years: Sundance, Utah. To build it, he’s used foam plus a special mixture of plasters and paints that aren’t, for the record, mashed potatoes—a point perhaps worth clarifying. Beneath some of Claflin’s posts, he noted, commenters have used GIFs to conjure the dinner table scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

“This guy makes this diorama out of mashed potatoes because he’s having these visions,” said Claflin, laughing.

Over the summer, Claflin thought he was done. He’d secured a 3D printer and added all kinds of structures, like rails, a parking lot, and lift towers. Meanwhile, the slopes looked lifelike, with tidy boundaries of little green trees. But the mountain was empty, auspiciously covered in snow, with no skiers to enjoy it. Claflin eventually settled on someone to get first tracks: his dad, who passed away when he was nine.

In an emotional post that contrasted with his tongue-in-cheek outings, Claflin showed off the tiny skier—modeled off an old photo of his dad—and placed him near the parking lot. It was a fitting tribute. Along with modeling partners, Claflin and his dad were ski buddies. The inclusion touched on both father-son activities. 

Afterward, people began asking if Claflin could add their loved ones, too. He did, using his 3D printer, and from there expanded his repertoire. Shiffrin showed up. So did Snowboard Jesus and, through a partnership, skiers wearing kits from Backcountry. The internet did its thing.

In June, Claflin’s time at his day job ended. He said he now plans to spend the next year or so embarking on what he called a radical career pivot. Along with adding new skiers to the mountain, he also creates smaller, adventure-themed dioramas and figurines on commission and sells templates for the tabloid Christmas cards. 

“I’ve just been sustaining myself that way, and just kind of seeing where it all takes me,” he said.

Claflin’s also thinking about how he can help kids like him who lost a family member through a foundation he said he’s working on. He hopes the diorama can promote the effort. The goal? Fund those kids getting outside.

“That’s what I was able to do after my dad died,” Claflin said. “I’d go ski, I’d go mountain bike, and that was really therapy for me.”

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