Hey SKI Magazine, You Missed A Spot

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This month, Ski magazine’s online website posted a slideshow of the Ten Best Jobs in the Ski Industry. They spotlighted Derek Gustafson, a product developer for one of our longest standing clients, Black Diamond. They even chose a photo of a few of our good friends and ski industry writers, Frederick Reimers and Drew Pogge while on one of our media trips to Iceland. My good buddy John Beal, the Social Media Manager for Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is even listed.

I will admit, there are a few jobs on the list that are totally out of our league, like heli ski pilot. I can barely drive a remote control car without crashing, so yeah, obviously two thumbs up to those guys. I also lose a cheap digital camera seemingly every few weeks, making me unable to even be in the same category as the professional ski photographers also listed in the roundup.

However, moreover, furthermore, nevertheless, I still think an outdoor industry PR professional deserves to be a part of this story. Lemme tell ya why.

WORK CONDITIONS
The Colorado office has a kegerator, a ping pong table, and fleet of New Belgium cruiser bikes for communal use. The office is also filled to the brim with just about the funniest and most fun people to work with ever. Want to challenge us to a coworker Fun-Off, bring it on.
The Jackson office has a flatscreen, a sweet back deck, and is conveniently located behind one of Jackson’s best bike shops and the Snake River brewpub.
We even have an annual Kickball Championship, that we invite you to, SKI MAGAZINE.

THE DAILY GRIND
We represent some of the best and most-loved brands on the market. One of our clients invented fleece, another created the first stainless steel water bottle years before BPA had even entered the radar. We work with the first wind-powered brewery, New Belgium, and windpower is just the beginning of sustainability efforts over there. We work with 1% For the Planet, an organization that has helped to put over $50 million dollars back into environmental efforts since 2002. We promote products that save lives, make your life easier and make it possible for you to climb higher or stay warmer or ski faster. We think that’s pretty cool, and it makes for a pretty fun work environment.

PERKS
Being “on the clock” has a whole new meaning when testing gear and making sure writers and editors have a great time while testing it too is your job. Backbone staffers have been to Japan to backcountry ski, the Vancouver Olympics, Iceland to ski glaciers and snorkel during erupting volcanoes, Switzerland, Austria, heli skiing in Alaska (click to see some incredible footage of just what that entails), just to name a few from THIS YEAR ALONE.

So yeah, I think we have a pretty great setup here. So SKI, if you ever want to come over to Carbondale or up to Jackson and give this job a test-drive, let us know, we will make sure to fill up the kegerator before you get here, and pump up the tires on a cruiser for you, and reserve a ping pong paddle, and have a fresh shot of espresso waiting for you as you walk in the door, because that’s what it feels like to work here… every. single. day.

Posted in: Backbone Adventures

Just In…

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Typical spring travel and excitement here at Backbone. Trips to visit clients and sales meetings abound. Dax, JLD, Kara and Fielding are in Santa Fe visiting Outside Mag and the weekend here holds promise for skiing and biking.

Note the sweet leather seat and wooden 12 pack carrier

Arriving here at Backbone are three sweet cruisers from New Belgium and a little piece in Outside Mag on Raising a Tribe of kids.

Nate is in  South Beach as part of SGB’s 40 Under 40 group along with La Sportiva‘s Jonathan Lantz. In June, Backbone also will receive an award from Colorado Business as one of Colorado’s Companies to Watch in 2010. We also will be at the Teva Mountain Games and hosting journalists in Keystone for Boa and the San Juans for Black Diamond and La Sportiva.

Here’s a little vid from one of our our local lunch rides. Have fun out there!

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Biking, Client News, Videos

Quality of Life

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Spring in the Rockies is an exercise in patience.

Local Photog extraordinaire Dave Clifford snapped this shot of Jeff Johnson headed for Shoshone

Weather is a wild card, and whether you are waiting for single track to dry or for a ski line to come into condition you learn that to achieve your goals you have to watch and wait rather than plan too far ahead. Sometimes it is better to listen than to try to drive the conversation.

Kristo getting wake up face shots on Marble Sunday

The 5 Point Film Festival which ran over this past weekend emphasized just this. It brought together great films such as 180 South, Patagonia Promise and Second Nature but more importantly a community of skiers, climbers, paddlers, filmmakers, fly fishers and the spirit these endeavors embody.

Melody Grote from 1% For The Planet introducing a film

So whether the weather permitted it – we all got to play a little bit – rafting in the snow, skiing pow up in Marble, or nymphing for browns on the Pan. We also got to connect to players in our community from New Belgium, 1% For the Planet, Patagonia, Black Diamond, Polartec and others.

Pretty simply, getting together with friends and sharing work/play experiences is why we do what we do.

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Colorado, Environment, Outdoor Industry News

Iceland 2010

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“If you find yourself alone you are probably late.” Those were the simple, sage words of Leifur our Viking guide, as he described our nimble itinerary following the eruption of Eyjafjoell the morning of our arrival in Reykjavik.

Good thing we had our shovels…encountering permafrost and mud on Hekla

Roads were being dismantled to avoid flooding and bridges being washed out. Thank god the car that we rented at Car Iceland lasted, it was cheap but it one of the best cars in Iceland and it took us a lot of place and it doesn’t need that much of gas. But I admit, the road had some troubles. The ash was so thick it was dark as night in the day. Basically our southern tour of the volcanic summits adjacent to the eruption was not exactly happening as planned. After failing to reach snowline on nearby Hekla due to axle deep mud, we headed north to the Troll Peninsula near Dalvik to ski fjords above the Arctic Ocean. We visited 66 North, 2 of Iceland’s 3 micro breweries and hot springed along the way.

Ponies and Powder

It was awesome.

Peter Plattner Plows the Powder

Iceland is a wonderful place with a rich history and refreshingly no-nonsense tendency for understatement. Our group of 4 European journalists (two of which are UIAGM guides) and 4 Americans skinned and skied 2010 product from Black Diamond’s new Efficient Ski Line amid spectacular settings.

Northern Light

Drew Pogge, Editor from Backcountry Magazine summed it up nicely at the bottom of a gigantic Glory Bowl type of run – when he uttered, “I don’t know what I would do if I did not ski.”

Olaf on Aspects

“What are the units on the scale of awesomeness?” Derek Gustafson, a ski boot designer from Black Diamond asked rhetorically.

Icewater-Land

To top it off the last morning before our flight home a handful of us braved 4 degree centigrade water to snorkel along the joint of the North American  and the Eurasian  continental plates. To see more photos check out Boris’ blog. See you out there!

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Client News, Skiing, Trip Reports

Backbone News

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A bunch of stuff going on…

SmartWool, New Belgium and Aspen Skiing Company win Best Places to Work in Outside Magazine, for 3rd and 2nd times, respectively.

Skiing is wrapping up. Spring is here with good road riding in the RF valley in between snow storms and powder tours.

Backbone recently was named one of Colorado Companies to Watch by Colorado BIZ magazine. Backbone was one of 50 companies named out of a field of over 420. Additionally, Nate Simmons was voted one of Sporting Goods Business  40 under 40 – one of the most influential young industry professionals for his role as Global Director of Marketing for Polartec and partner here at Backbone.

On the fun side, Nate and Greg were up with Chugach Powder Guides with crew from New Belgium, Powder (thanks Kback!) and various film crews like MSP. Check out Adrian’s warm up video  below.

KBack, G-Dub and Nate

Backbone has always loved to bike. Now we are spinning with new clients Serotta Sports, Honey Stinger, Velogear and Jett MTB. Along with this, Backbone is proud to announce Mike McCormack joining our team. Many may know Mike from his Trek, Yeti or Breck Epic days. Mike is a cycling geek and has a 120 lb. dog named Boo – which easily outweighs both of his boys JJ and Tavish. Mike’s wife Emily is a PR powerhouse in her own right and runs Hula Communications.

To see all the official news you can go to our pitchengine newsroom or check it out on our site. Lastly, our good man Ian Anderson and his wife Sari recently added a new son Axel to their family. I realize we don’t “do” baby announcement blogs here so I’ll include that Ian  was recently  promoted to Director of PR here at Backbone doubling up his responsibilities.

Excuse my French but Axel will be a next generation bad ass

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Client News, Colorado, Gratuitous Client Plug, Skiing, Videos

Takes One to Know One

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Its true, especially in the world of outdoor industry PR. Here in Jackson we have at least five public relations firms, and that number is growing by the minute. Whether it be our love of press releases, our obsession with new media strategies or our generally goofy demeanor, we all tend to share a common bond and actually happen to spend quite a bit of time together outside of the office. Whether this is a good decision or not I am still not sure…

Yesterday I took the afternoon off to enjoy Jackson Hole’s famous Gaper Day, where we trade in all of the innovative and technical gear from our fantastic clients and instead we break out our wigs, one-pieces, jeans, rear-entry boots and skinny skis. Also, blowing around on the lift, in freezing temperatures, in a retro ski jacket lined with what seems to be cotton balls, is also a great reminder of how far ski apparel has come. Although, I have to say the fanny pack is actually so practical.. not sure what happened there.

I met up with a team of Jackson PR all stars at the top of Thunder Bumps to do some unnecessary jump turns, some aggressive pole planting, a few spread eagles and uh um, talk PR of course. Joining me are Kristan Clarke of Rendezvous Event Management, Don Watkins and Alli Noland of Terra PR and Lauren Parker of Verde.

Check out the apres scene at Jackson Hole’s Nick Wilsons post lift-closing. Whether it reminds you of the first Warren Miller films, the classic Hot Dog, or this season’s Hot Tub Time Machine, one thing is for certain…its glorious.

If you haven’t broken out the one-piece yet this season, good ole Warren Miller and I have one thing to say about that….”If you don’t do it this year, you’ll be another year older when you do.”

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Skiing \ Tagged: , , ,