Iceland 2010

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http://sjfiremuseum.org/wp-json/oembed/1.0/embed?url=https://sjfiremuseum.org/members/willie-banuelos/ “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.

Shardara 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: , , ,

An Unlikely Black Diamond Ski Convert

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When I first told a friend I was going to work at Backbone, he said, “You better get used to the idea of skiing Black Diamond skis.” Nawww, I thought, those things are too planky.

Turns out lots has changed about Black Diamond skis in the past few years, and the current selection is nothing like the old sticks I used to borrow from my college’s freeheel club. I recently got a pair of the Justices, and as a devout bump skier I was wary of skiing something 115 underfoot.

Fast-forward to last weekend, when I drove to the annual Telemark Extreme Skiing Championships in Crested Butte. The morning of the first day of the comp, I opened up my car/extra storage unit and stared at my choice of skis for the day. You can check this website to learn about more storage solutions. Out of the big pile of K2s, Icelantics, Karhus, and G3s, I chose the BD Justices.

The combination of long binding cartridges/small boots proved fatal, as I walked out of my binding with a few turns left in the 2nd run, and got disqualified as my ski rocketed to the bottom. But I have to give Black Diamond props—the Justices kill it in pretty much any snow condition. They are maneuverable enough for light bump skiing, come around as quickly as you need them to in steeps (thanks to the early-rise tip), and are able to arc long big-mountain turns in powder.

Check out the video of the event. I appear around :28 seconds in. Don’t take a sip of coffee, you’ll miss me.

Posted in: Gratuitous Client Plug, Skiing \ 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: , , , , ,

Powder, Raw Fish, and Cherry Blossoms

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I was lucky enough to get to spend the past week in Japan representing Black Diamond on a photo shoot and telemark festival. Before I left, I had vague visions of myself posing for pictures with Japanese skiers whose default picture pose was throwing up a peace sign. Turns out that was an unfounded Asian stereotype—the number one most preferred picture pose among Japanese skiers seems to be throwing a fist in the air, Claim-style.

I was told by several people that the popularity of skiing was on long-term decline in Japan after enjoying it’s heyday in the 1980s due to the economic recession, as well as the fact that skiing is no longer seen as cool among younger generations. I was also told that was the kiss of death in a culture that is more concerned than average with keeping up with the latest trends.

These things are probably true, but last week I had trouble believing in the decline of skiing and the inherent hip nature of Japanese culture as: a) around 400 freeheelers showed to a small, three-lift mountain in a torrential downpour to participate in the Telemakuri festival and b) the second most common picture pose turned out to be a thumbs-up.

Joking aside, what I did find true among the locals that I skied with is that they were not just welcoming, they were incredibly excited to show me their country and admirably persistent in trying to communicate me in English and include me in all of the festival’s activities. This meant a lot to me as I felt pretty pathetic only being able to speak a few phrases of Japanese. What kind of activities did a Japanese telemark festival include? There were the usual ski and boots demo, instructional clinics, and fun races.

The Black Diamond/Smartwool booth was by far the busiest of all. There was also a syncronized skiing competition, which I got to be a guest judge for:

Unfortunately the rain and fog were too dense to actually see the skiers until they were very close, but still people’s enthusiasm did not wane. The afterparty was like no other I had ever been to. This performance kicked off the event:

I’ll bet you five bucks that the girl on the right eventually does a national tour, gets ringtones of her songs, and inspires a manga character.

All in all after two days of shooting in Hokkaido, a day on a ferry down to the main island, two days of Telemakuri, and two days of being a camera-toting Tokyo tourist, it was one of the best trips of my life. I will end with a shot of the terrain in Asahidake, the tallest mountain in Hokkaido, where we got our one perfect weather day:

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

Hot Tub Time Machine

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If you’ve been watching the Olympics coverage (if you can call it that) on NBC, you might have seen the previews for Hot Tub Time Machine. Almost two years ago we got a call from a production assistant at MGM asking permission to use vintage Kästle skis in the movie. At the time, we could hardly believe this was a real movie, but the paperwork looked legit and there were some big names associated with the film (John Cusack, Chevy Chase)…so what the hell, right?

Fast forward (or time travel in this case) to 2010 and the movie hits theaters on March 26.

Despite the premise, this actually looks pretty damn funny. “Twitagra?” Awesome.

A bulk of the movie apparently takes place in an 80’s ski resort and the trailer includes some gratuitous shots of neon one-piece suits. At the least we’re hoping for a few shots of some sweet retro Kästle skis. In a dream scenario, we’ll see a Lane Meyer-esque ski scene down the K12. “Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way…turn.”

In related movie news, we were also just contacted by a producer looking for gear to use on the set of 127 Hours, a movie about Aaron Ralston starring James Franco….not sure what to think of that one.

Posted in: Client News, Skiing, Videos \ Tagged: , , ,

Stream of social/PR/media consciousness

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Backbone 2010 goes something like this so far:

Ski Day, conference calls, NYC, FAM trip, FB and mobile apps, Vail, Crested Butte, ice climbing, Steamboat, avy class, Beaver Creek, Fort Collins, 1% iTunes, Shot Show, Monarch Cat Skiing, truck crash (walk away), OR, Dawn Patrol, dog commute, SIA, Bluebird, On-Snow, Rando Race, ISPO, hut trip, Olympics, Clients in Town, 30″ new, pow ski, PowderWeek, ski tests, Birkebeiner, Telemakuri, Scufoneda, Aspen entertain, Big Lepowski.

if you have extra time to burn try reading above to this tune…REM End of the World As We Know It.

And we feel fine

Posted in: Backbone Adventures, Climbing, Colorado, Musings, Outdoor Industry News, Skiing

An Antarctic Ski Odyssey

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In November 2009 Chris Davenport, Stian Hagen, and Andrea Binning ventured to the bottom of the world in search of the ski lines of their dreams. During their journey to the Antarctic Peninsula, the team discovered a new understanding of the beauty of ski mountaineering and of the depths of human connection to nature. This is their story shot by Jimmy Surette of Granite Films.

Australis: An Antarctic Ski Odyssey from Granite Films Jim Surette on Vimeo.

Posted in: Skiing