The Forecast Calls for Pain

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photo: Jeremy Swanson

photo: Jeremy Swanson

Media FAM checklist

  • 17 miles of ski touring and descending
  • 8,000 feet of vertical gain
  • Top elevation 12,392 feet
  • 70+ mph wind gusts
  • Zero visibility
  • Waist deep powder
  • 160 cm skis
  • 2 buckle boots
  • 6+ hours of racing

Press trips or media “FAMS” are a tried and true PR tactic. The concept is pretty simple: invite journalists to experience your hotel/restaurant/product first-hand so they can write about it. Generally speaking, journalists are pretty pampered on FAM trips, enjoying extravagant meals, five-star accommodations and more. At Backbone, we host well over a dozen FAM trips every year, often travelling to exotic locations to go skiing in Iceland, canyoneering in the Grand Canyon, kayaking in the San Juans, rafting the Middle Fork, or surfing in Costa Rica. In fact, right now, we’re hosting a trip in Patagonia with Eddie Bauer.

But this past weekend we tried a different FAM trip concept: make them suffer.

As you may have heard, ski mountaineering, or SkiMo is exploding in popularity.  Our client La Sportiva is one of the brands helping to drive the sport, sponsoring some of the world’s top skimo racers and races. They make some of the lightest, most innovative skimo gear on the market, including the nearly $3,000 carbon fiber Stratos Cube boot.

To showcase La Sportiva’s skimo line, we decided to invite a small group of journalists to try the gear in the environment for which it’s intended—a race. It just so happens that we have one of the country’s biggest and best skimo races right here in our backyard, the Audi Power of Four.

We tricked coerced lied to persuaded journalists from Outside, Skiing, Gear Patrol and Gear Junkie to come up and stay at the new Wildwood Snowmass on Thursday, take a day to shake down their gear on Friday, and then enter the race on Saturday.

The conditions on race morning were epic. It had snowed most of the night, it continued to dump snow all day and the wind on top of Highlands Bowl was howling with gusts over 70 mph (or was it 90? The number gets bigger every time I hear another racer talk about the race).

Anyway, I’ll let the pro storytellers share their own race day tales, but I can tell you this was the most memorable FAM trip most of our group had ever experienced.

Read Gear Junkie Sean McCoy’s account here.  And the boys from Skiing shared their thoughts on the race here with a photo gallery here.

As for me, I was happy to run support for the race, grabbing videos of the media teams where I could and having my little 7-year-old friend Ella push whiskey on the unsuspecting racers.




Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Trip Reports \ Tagged: , , , , , , ,

An Hour on the Pan

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Last weekend, a crew from Outside Magazine descended upon our upvalley neighbors in Aspen for a couple days of skiing and staff bonding. After a bluebird day spent hiking Highlands Bowl on Saturday, a bunch of the boys decided they wanted to test the legendary waters of the Frying Pan river on Sunday. Kara, born and bred in Wyoming, volunteered to be their guide and provided the group with the latest Sage rods and Cloudveil waders.

The boys from Outside (Grayson, Justin, Abe and Stayton) soon learned that Kara may be small in stature, but put a fly rod in her hands and she’s a force to be reckoned with. Grayson just sent us this terrific short video of their day on the Pan, with music from the immanently talented Stayton Bonner (check out more of Stayton’s music here).

(Stayton, you owned that one-piece at Highlands on Saturday, AND you rocked your fishing waders like a pro, but you clearly rock the hardest with a 5-string in your hands. Just sayin’.)

Posted in: Fishing, Skiing, Snowboarding, Videos \ Tagged: , , , , ,

Kayaking Mysteriously Moves

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I used to be a kayaker.

These days days I’m considering shaving my legs because of all the spandex I wear.

I never thought I’d give up paddling in cool water in favor of pedaling on dusty dirt…it just happened. Back in the day, I kayaked over 100 days a year, starting with an annual New Year’s Day float down Shoshone on the Colorado. I was a certified kayak instructor, a raft guide and a pretty solid Class V boater. And from their website I bought a new playboat every year from  a new creek boat every other. My garage wafted wet neoprene all summer.

Now I train on my road bike to go faster on my mountain bike. I spend countless hours cleaning and wrenching (poorly) on my bikes to keep them running smoothly. I know gear ratios and count the grams of carbon components .

What the hell happened?

Maybe it was a move to a new town where the whitewater is less accessible and the familiar paddling posse is far away. Maybe it was starting a family. Maybe I just needed a new fix.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Grayson Schaeffer has a terrific piece in this month’s Outside about the rapid decline of whitewater kayaking in the US. Check it out here.

Recently I’ve been considering two alternatives to resuscitate my whitewater addiction. Fire up the bandwagon, but Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) does look pretty rad. Especially when you navigate one down a class IV stretch like the Numbers on the Arkansas. My buddy Hobie makes it look easy.

Apparently Hobie took his SUP down Class V Gore Canyon earlier this week. I can’t wait to see that vid.

On the other side of the spectrum is a variety of kayaking that’s so old it’s coming back around to retro-cool status. I haven’t been squirt boating since my college days on the New River in West by God Virginia, but I’m tempted to try and hunt down a used one now. Especially after I watch video of Skiing Magazine editor Sam Bass spinning Mystery Moves so deep and long he needs SCUBA gear. If you don’t know what a Mystery Move is, it’s the holy grail of squirt boating – and Sam is well on his way to finding it – on the bottom of the Arkansas river.

Posted in: Musings \ Tagged: , , , , , ,

Outdoor Industry, Listen up! (to this 12-year-old)

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Jordan Romero is a 12-year-old kid from Big Bear Lake, California, who is on a quest to become the youngest person to climb the Seven Summits. He’s already climbed five. However, what’s more important for the outdoor industry is the opportunity for Jordan to be a role model and inspiration to get kids active and outside.

Doug Schnitzspahn asked Jordan to write an essay for the OR Show Daily about how to get kids involved in the outdoors. Schnitz later told me it was his favorite editorial story in all four days of the Daily. In case you missed it, I’ve posted it below. It looks long, but it’s well worth a five-minute read and it includes some terrific ideas that every company in the outdoor industry should take to heart.

Get Inside to Get Them Outside
By Jordan Romero

A normal day for me begins with hearing my cell phone alarm ring my favorite ringtone at 6:30 a.m.  I snooze it a couple of times, trot downstairs for a bowl of cereal, some Acai, FRS and some vitamins. I grab my lunch from the fridge, make sure my homework from the night before is packed in my bag and by 7:30 a.m. I am heading out the door for a short 10 minute walk to Big Bear Middle School. At 7:44 a.m. the first bell rings.  The rest of the day is spent shuffling between classes counting minutes.  One class ends at 10:18 a.m., another 11:41 a.m. and we get exactly 4 minutes to get between classes.  It’s a funny schedule to be so exact. It makes me laugh to be on a schedule that is so exact and it’s especially amusing that the school clock is actually 2 minutes off and they don’t even know it.  I set my watch by the satellite time on the Internet and the school clock is always 2 minutes behind.

Jordan on the Denali summit approach

Jordan on the Denali summit approach

So, at exactly1:55 p.m. (on the school clock) I am finished with school and I walk 10 minutes home (maybe it’s even 11 minutes since it’s up hill, but by that time, I am pretty much done with counting minutes).  I get home, grab a snack and then nearly every day I do some exercise.  Sometimes I run, sometimes I hike, other times I bike, practice on my slackline or do some climbing practice. It’s a habit and I like doing it. I’ve been exercising in the outdoors since I was a little kid. My Dad took me camping and hiking before I could even walk. I grew up in the outdoors, it’s a real part of my life.  The gear, the magazines, the sports stores, it’s what I know and mostly it’s my Dad’s fault. (Thanks Dad!)

I live in a mountain resort community where running, biking, hiking, paddling are the norm and are within easy access to everyone, yet there are many, many kids at my school who don’t go and don’t want to play outside.  It’s not their fault, they just never got the same opportunity that I did.  If a kid’s parents don’t teach them to play in the outdoors, who will?

I think that’s where the Outdoor Industry needs to focus their attention.  They need to get the attention of the kids who don’t go out, the kids who don’t know what to do outside.

Jordan on the summit of Mt Elbrus

Jordan on the summit of Mt Elbrus with his dad.

The big question is how to get the attention of these kids, the ones whose parents don’t know what to do or where to go either. These kids don’t have mountain bikes in their garage, backpacks just waiting to be filled with camping gear that is tucked away on the shelves.  These kids’ parents don’t have adventure magazines lying on the kitchen table. No amount of advertising is going to reach these kids and teach them that they can forget the time, ignore the minutes of the day and go enjoy the outdoors.

So, how can the Outdoor Industry reach these kids?

The big companies need to be connected in the local communities.  They need to be involved with the local Parks and Recs, Teen Centers and schools.  The way to become a household name is to be a part of the school athletic teams, let kids try out their products, sponsor contests and give prizes directly to the kids.


Kahtoola and Powerbar have begun such programs and they are spreading their name to kids who never heard of them before.  Powerbar sponsored our Middle School Cross Country team. We all wore our cool Powerbar shirts for training, to school and everywhere.  Our non Cross Country friends all learned about Powerbar at school from all of us. Kahtoola has joined in by sponsoring our school’s first Snowshoe Club.  They’re giving us 15 pairs of snowshoes to borrow so that even kids who don’t have the gear can join the club.  It doesn’t matter if their parents have even heard of snowshoeing, they can join.  By getting involved locally, kids don’t have to rely on their parents to teach them about the outdoors.  It’s a good role for the Outdoor Industry.

A little education will grow a whole new generation of outdoor kids who in turn will show their kids the way.  Together we’ll create a healthier and happier group of kids and parents.  A group of kids that use their watch to find the altitude, read a compass, the barometer and chronograph and know how to find the correct time.

For you cynics out there, who think that Jordan’s parents wrote this essay for him, read this interview that Outside magazine did with Jordan.

Jordan is the real deal, and he’s got the right ideas about how to get kids outdoors. We should all be following his lead.

Posted in: Interesting Read, Outdoor Industry News \ Tagged: , ,