Backbone is headed to the big city. We look forward to seeing all our media friends in NYC at our Fall showroom next week!
Plum of a Party at the X-Games
Thanks to everyone who came out for the first annual Backbone Media Lounge at the X-Games!
Contour is Cranking
Our friends over at Contour have so much cool stuff going on these days it’s hard to keep up. First of all, they introduced the first camera to integrate HD video with GPS tracking. Now you can watch your video while tracking location, speed and altitude – cool! Just a few scant weeks later, Contour announced there was a hidden Bluetooth chip in their GPS camera that connects wirelessly to your iphone or other mobile device to create a live viewfinder for the camera. No more missed shots! This announcement garnered Contour tons of accolades at the annual Consumer Electronics Show including a CES Innovations award, a Best of CES award from CNET and a 2011 CES Hot Stuff Award from Stuff Magazine.
Along the way, Contour has also caught the attention of some big time players in the entertainment industry….like the NFL. Check out the below video of Michael Vick wearing a Contour camera during recent practice for the Pro Bowl.
But at the end of the day, what’s best about Contour cameras is their ability to capture those epic moments in your life. Even (or especially) if it’s an epic FAIL. Thanks to Holly’s bf Ryan for this little gem.
I’m glad to report that Ryan’s Contour camera survived this crash without a scratch, and Ryan’s back is feeling ok – with the help of lots of aspirin.
It’s Hut Trip Season
Here in western CO, we are lucky enough to have a vast network of backcountry huts to ski to for overnight adventures. In the case of the Shrine Mountain Inn where we went at the beginning of the month for a holiday retreat, “backcountry hut” means beautiful log cabin complete with bathtub, sauna, running water, and rustic leather furniture.
We did some skiing:
Niklas Brosnan getting deep.
However, the terrain around Vail pass is pretty flat. This allowed for lots of drinking time.
Kara brought skinned in with her beer belt:
And Nate’s shot-ski was enjoyed by just about everyone. The highlight was when Justin David, aka Ricky Bobby, aka The New Guy called for an “anyone over 40” shot-ski day one on the job.
Evan, Lindsay, JLD, and Laura about to get Aquavined.
Which brings us to the following flow chart. One of our social media clients, Flylow Gear, ran a simple Friday facebook contest asking what everyone’s favorite beer was to carry in for a weekend hut trip. We got 67 responses, which inspired the following chart:
(click image for a close-up view)
Racking up the Miles
Fall season is here and it is go time to make it happen for Winter 2010 and Spring 2011.
Looking at the recent travel log (for work and fun) from Backbone it is something like this:
Expo East in Boston, 4 Pass Loop, Ventura, Seattle X2, NYC X2, OIA in Asheville, the Gunks, Santa Barbara, Cabela’s in Grand Junction, Jackson crew visits Carbondale, Kauai (okay that was a honeymoon), Alterian SM conference in Chicago, 24 Hours of Moab (2 podiums!), Telluride (Via ferrata!), Interbike in Vegas, Boulder, Indian Creek, Squamish, IFTD in Denver, Steamboat, Bellingham, Breckenrdige, Folly Beach, Bainbridge Island, OBX, DC, Fruita, Crested Butte and SLC.
Backbone has recently been fortunate to add new clients for media planning, PR and increased social media services as well as staff in our Jackson and Carbondale offices.
How does this happen? Well, best we can tell, it boils down to commitment. Commitment to lifestyle and brands we believe in. You can’t fake authenticity and as the media world changes the approach we take to work is similar to that of climbing, biking or skiing. It is an ongoing apprenticeship, where you can continue to learn, evolve, explore and share experiences with colleagues everyday.With challenge comes opportunity.
See ya out there!
Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America
A few years back, Backbone was promoting Ski the 14ers book, by Chris Davenport and Art Burrows.
Ski the 14ers was the culmination of Dav’s epic goal of skiing all 54 of Colorado’s 14,000′ peaks in a year. For you ski historians out there Lou Dawson was the first person to complete this task, in 1991 over the course of many years. By achieving this goal in just twelve months, Chris mixed tenacity, a high acumen of planning and route selection and displayed his voracious appetite for skiing.
This fall 2010, Backbone is again promoting another title with Dav – Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America. Co-authored with Art Burrows and Penn Newhard (yep, that is me), the book is a tribute to fifty of the greatest off piste descents in our continent.
Rather than just sit down over beers and decide what we thought was best, Chris, Art and I reached out to friends and skiers all over to get their opinion. By doing so, Fifty Classic Skis of North America becomes more than just a coffee table book of pretty pictures but combines the perspectives of our contributors becoming a snapshot of ski alpinism in 2010.
The contributor list ranges from iconic ski mountaineers like Lou Dawson, Chic Scott and Lowell Skoog to steep aficionados Andrew, McLean, Kris Erickson and Ptor Spricenieks and leading skiers including Glen Plake, Eric Pehota and Hilaree O’Neill. The book covers all types of peaks and exposures ranging from done-in-a-day classics like Tuckerman Ravine to expedition goals like the Messner on Denali. The contributing photographer list is strong with Christain Pondella, Scott Markewitz, Jordan Manley and Brad Washburn to name a few.
Fifty Classic Skis will be available through Wolverine Publishing in November 2010. Pre-orders are being offered at a slight discount. You can leanr more on Facebook. Check it out.
Back For More
It’s harvest time in New Mexico and Jen and I headed to Santa Fe for our friends’ wedding and a secret mission to return home with some of the finest green chile offered up by the “Land of Enchantment.” One of its most defining characteristics is the dominance of the New Mexican chile—in red and green varieties, depending on the stage of ripeness when picked. Last year was our first experience visiting during harvest season and picking up a 30lb bag of green chile peppers.
Remarkable to us both, was the presence of the smell of green chiles roasting throughout the streets of Santa Fe. Everywhere we went the smell followed us. And it smells so good! If you ever go, make sure to visit the legendary Cafe Pasqual’s. Start with their famous Japanese shoshito pepper appetizers. Afterwards, you need to follow it up with something with green or red chile, or even both (the “X-Mas” mix).This past winter our friends from New Mexico gave us a few special recipes, one of which we cultivated a pretty serious addiction to: Green Chile Chicken Stew. I’m convinced, there’s not a better post skiing meal! Only problem was, we went through our one 30lb bag of green chiles pretty damn fast. Thinking that we’re only about a month away from some serious skiing, we wanted to make sure we are properly prepared for the season ahead. So, we came Back For More.
We made it across the Colorado border with five 30lb bags of green chile. 150lbs total! Three bags of the medium strain referred to as “Big Jims” and two “X-Hot” bags. You could choose from mild, medium, Big Jims, X Hot, XX Hot and XXX Hot. After a 7 hour journey home, no rest was in sight. The real work was just about to begin.
I think we’re ready for a winter of Green Chicken Chile Stew? Ahh, the healing powers of the New Mexican green chile…
And if you want to check out a little video roasting action: ROAST Can you smell it? I can.
Meet Our Newest Hire-The Swede
In any good James Bond movie, everyone has the perfect alias. Goldfinger, Le Chiffre, Largo, Mr. Big. They have swaggers, and expensive shoes, greased hair and a quiver of weapons. They squint their eyes, travel with an entourage, and drive fancy cars. Well folks, we have our own new mysterious character, Niklas Brosnan, aka. The Swede. Be afraid, be very afraid. He looks and acts like a good guy, but let me tell you, nobody is an expert crepe maker without having a darkside. I’ll say this, Mike and I will have our wits about us now in the Jackson office as there is something undoubtably dubious about this fellow.
Born abroad (as all villians are), Nik began his life in Sweden so his early years have been hard to track. His family still remains in Stockholm where I would guess they obviously spend all day eating Swedish meatballs and discussing how to take over the world, like any good villainous family would. Nik recently admitted that his Swedish passport provides a level of assumed neutrality and passivity allowing him to pass through European checkpoints with ease, unlike the glaring red flag of an American passport. Interesting. I still think he probably crosses borders under the cover of night on backroads, in unmarked cars, but that’s just a hunch.
We ended up in Munich together once when he was working an inside job at Cloudveil. He took us all out to the Hofbräuhaus and kept the beers (truth serum) flowing. He however managed to coincidentally get a tiny glass (note photo) and “wasn’t able” to drink as much as we were. Very clever, Swede.Very clever.
In an in-depth interrogation session early today, Nik admitted to liking the Stones over the Beatles, but I think that is just an obvious American choice. So sly. He also likes ice cream cake, which threw me off a bit, but I think that was the point. He travels everywhere with his french press, so if I figure if I deprive him of coffee I may be able to torture him into telling me his treasonous plans.
He claims that his ping pong skills are mediocre, which at first glance would be an advantage for the other Backbone staffers to defend themselves. However, I’m not buying it. I just figure he was too busy mastering new levels of sneakiness using his personalized ping pong paddles. Who needs ping pong when you can kill someone with your pinkie? Or a poisonous crepe perhaps? I’m on to you, Swede.
I also don’t trust anyone from the country that produced ABBA.
In an effort to make him feel comfortable and convince him that I am not a threat, I have welcomed him with open arms here at the Backbone office. He says he likes Donut Tuesdays, which means he has done his research on how to butter us up. Very sneaky, Swede. Anyway, you’ll be seeing him around from now on, talking to him on the phone and over email. He will be charming and polite, work hard and be epically helpful. I believe its all a ruse, but time will tell. Just keep your eyes peeled, that’s all I’m saying. And don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Notes from the Field
There is commentary in the media that points to an acceleration of business and life in general.
Crowd-sourced sharing of content and ideas manifested in socially driven community based applications…oh, goodness, is that comprehensible, let alone true?
While there is plenty of evidence that points to this general ‘hastening’ of business; we find that a blend of staying focused on fundamental blocking and tackling, and maintaining personal relationships is equally important as a counterbalance to these new school dynamics. This strategy has helped us recently launch the Bamboo Bottle Company, which has already seen online traction on Gizmodo, Uncrate, and tweeted about by Biz Stone.
Another new client, Contour was just named to the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest growing business’ in the country. Black Diamond skis and boots have won over 13 top-tier awards from Powder, Skiing and Backcountry magazines. Gerber’s launch of the Bear Grylls knives collection has spiked web traffic with a mix of online and traditional placements. Media is moving rapidly, and so is Backbone – with Mike McCormack running the Breck Epic mountain bike stage race last week and moving to Carbondale over the weekend, Dax re-locating to Folly Beach, South Carolina,and Nick Brosnan joining our Jackson Hole office.
Flylow and Backbone start a new social media partnership today – which is the result of just too many good conversations while sharing turns on most excellent powder days to not happen. Backbone also will be pushing out Chris Davenport and Jim Surette’s excellent film Australis in the coming months.
Media is not shrinking. It is exploding. And even better, it is doing so in a decentralized manner, where ideas and energy trump entrenched formulas. Open your eyes, take a deep breath and head on out there. Chances are you’ll have some fun along the way.
Lucky 13
As Backbone nears its 13th Anniversary – we took some time out for our mid year reviews and gathered the crew for a few days of fun, sun, bike rides and rivers here in Carbondale.
Open table discussions, ping pong, New Belgium beer and evening bike rides kicked things off, followed by a run down Shoshone rapids in Glenwood Canyon. We only had one swimmer – the result of Maneater Rapid chewing on a ducky – while we rafted, kayaked and SUP’ed.
Margaritas and BBQ capped it off, now Mavis is off to ride with the SmartWool crew from Steamboat to SLC, Nate is turning 40 and Backbone welcomes Amy Harvey as our new Office Manager replacing Megan Perkins. We wish Megan well as she heads off to her new teaching job and thank her for adding so much light and energy to our office.
Onward!