Nathan Morgan

Outside profile

More than 99 percent of luggage gets claimed as soon as it’s unloaded from the plane. The remaining 1 percent is sold to the Unclaimed Baggage Center, a business in Scottsboro, Alabama, that runs a 40,000 square-foot store where 5,000 of these forgotten items hit the sales floor each day. Over a million total items pass through their inventory each year. The warehouse gets lots of electronics and clothing, but truly weird products show up, too. (Think a full suit of armor and rare musical instruments.) There’s also a lot of ski gear—and not just rental junk either. There’s high-end AT boots, top-notch skis, and plenty of Gore-Tex, all steeply discounted. Jackets go for roughly $15 to $200, boots for $15 to $100, and skis for $50 to $225. The result: a ski swap on steroids, with 6,500 buyers waiting hours to get inside. Photo: Nathan Reed, left, drove down from Chattanooga, Tennessee, for the eighth year in a row to attend the sale. Next to him (left to right) stand twin brothers Tyler and Taylor Kidwell, Sean Floyd, and Michael Bowen.

Snow Sports

The World’s Biggest Ski Swap Is in...Alabama

When an airline bag packed with ski stuff goes unclaimed, it ends up at a warehouse in Alabama. Once a year, that gear goes on sale in the world’s biggest winter-goods orgy. We sent a photographer to document the chaos.

Nathan Morgan

Published: Nov 10, 2015