PowderWhores in the Roaring Fork Valley

That’s right! Its time for the PowderWhore film, Television, showings in both Aspen and Glenwood.

As the last stop on their Colorado tour, the Belly Up in Aspen will host the movie on Friday night, and the Glenwood Springs Rec Center will be the location for the Saturday night viewing.

Tickets are $10 for both shows and the show in Glenwood Springs will have FREE beer from Big Sky Brewing!

Aspen show time = 7pm and doors open at 6pm

Glenwood show time = 7:30pm

See ya there!

Powderwhore Presents 2010 Telemark Flick: TeleVision

Names that were left on the cutting room floor: Telekinesis, Telecommunication, Telegraphs.

Telemark puns aside, it’s trailer season, which combined with the growing amount of ski talk around the office is causing some of us to eagerly anticipate winter a bit too early. For their 2010 film, the Powderwhores traveled to Haines, the Revelations, and the Chugach in AK, along with some classic Wasatch locations.

This year’s film features Backbone friend and newly appointed ESPN freeskiing editor Megan Michelson in what the Powderwhore boys are calling the best female ski segment they’ve shot to date, along with Roaring Fork Valley local rippers Jake Sakson, Will Cardamone, and Nick Devore.

Without further ado, we present to you this tele-stoke teaser:

Bottled Water 101

In a recent episode, Katie Couric talks to “Tapped” filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig and Joe Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, and asks them pressing questions about the new film and what the IBWA has to say about it. If you’ve got a half hour, this debate will educate you on both sides of the story and hopefully leave you with one clear take-away, that we need to eliminate plastic from our daily lives and start to make reusable choices. Klean Kanteen was thrilled to be asked to be the bottle of choice for the staff and tour of ”Tapped” and proud to share their mission.

Klean Kanteen also worked with Pickathon, Portland’s indie roots festival, which took place this past weekend, to make it the first plastic-free music festival ever. Take a look at the photos below to get a glimpse of the new Klean Kanteen Festival Cup, a stainless steel pint glass, in action and see what we hope will be the future of sustainable music festivals.

http://iamlearningdisabled.com/adventures-in-nld-land-what-color-is-my-room/ Pickathon Photos-more to come!

(L to R) Zach (Klean Kanteen’s web guru), Ethan (Creative Director) and Zale (founder of Pickathon) survey the scene across the main field.

An attendee filling up at one of the many refill stations found throughout the show.

All the cups were personalized via Sharpie and left on large vertical drying racks when not being used.

More photos and stories to come when the Klean Kanteen staffers return from Portland.

Pickathon Festival Partners with Klean Kanteen to Go 100% Plastic-Free

Many say it is impossible to hold a large, multi-day music festival without using plastic cups and without selling bottled water. The organizers of Pickathon 2010 and Klean Kanteen®, maker of the first BPA-free metal bottle designed for personal hydration, are determined to prove the naysayers wrong. Pickathon is a three-day music festival held every summer at Pendarvis Farm, an 80-acre property outside of Portland, OR. Now in its 12th year, Pickathon is going plastic cup and plastic bottle free.

“Most events produce incredible amounts of unnecessary plastic pollution,” said Danielle Cresswell, Sustainability Officer of Klean Kanteen. “Most of it ends up in a landfill, and sadly, too much plastic finds its way into waterways, the ocean, and the food chain of many animal species, including humans. Even when recycled, plastic downgrades significantly in the process, resulting in an inferior material that is still ultimately destined to be pollution. We’re proud to work with Pickathon toward a common vision to create the model for truly sustainable, plastic-free music festivals.”

Signal Waste provides industrial waste bins which helps in effectively managing waste and reducing toxins from being released into the air.

Jake Holfield, head of recycling for Pickathon, estimates that in 2009, festival-goers used about 35,000 plastic cups and about 25,000 plastic bottles.

Through its sponsorship, Klean Kanteen is subsidizing the sale of its stainless steel bottles, which will be discounted and available for purchase at multiple sites throughout the festival grounds. Special, limited-edition bottles with the Pickathon logo will also be available.

“We view this as a pilot project,” said Jeff Cresswell, Co-Owner of Klean Kanteen. “The goal is to test and prove that all it takes to eliminate the truckloads of plastic pollution at these events is a true commitment to the environment, some thoughtful planning and a solid partnership.”

The decision to go plastic-free is however, not a small one. Massive infrastructure changes are necessary to ensure that festival goers, musicians and staff still have easy access to water and drinking containers as well as continuing the Pickathon dedication to sustainability and environmental responsibility.

buy cytotec online with no prescription Sustainability Efforts at Pickathon include:
• A 24 hour recycling team to collect and sort recyclable and compostable materials, as well as collecting and filtering all the gray water from showers, water and wash stations to be reused around the venue for dust control.
• Two solar arrays, installed by Pickathon’s green energy partner, REC Solar, to offset energy used at two of the large stages at the event.
• Two large, mobile water trucks and multiple refill stations throughout the property. Beer drinkers will also be able to personalize their Festival Cups with Sharpies and leave them in the beer garden on drying racks.
• The medical tent, front gate check-in, and ticketing areas will continue to be solar powered, as they have been in the past, and the two miles of wooded festival trails and camping areas will also be marked with LED lighting.
• Since 2008 Pickathon has partnered with the local transportation company, EcoShuttle, to provide free transportation from the nearest public hub out to Pendarvis Farm.
• Pickathon encourages cycling to the event, even providing route maps and descriptions, and also helps link people up with carpooling resources.
• Collaboration with a number of local hotels for out of town attendees, offering free shuttle service out to the farm. The goal is to increase alternative transportation use from 15% of attendees in 2009, to 50% within the next five years.

FUN STUFF
The Pickathon 2010 Preview Mix-This is awesome.
Band Highlight Videos
Time Lapse Video of the Venue Setup:

Just In…

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!

Backbone News

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

Wednesday Inspiration: Birthright

Check out this beautiful short film the guys over at Paddling Life found.

One man’s struggle to transcend.

This humble film is about a friend of mine named Michael and his daily ritual to find his natural self through surfing.

Directed by Sean Mullens
Cinematography by Sean Mullens
Music by The Album Leaf – Into the Blue Again – Broken Arrow
Sub Pop Records 2006

Clips of Faith – Films Needed

This summer our good friends at New Belgium Brewing are launching a film and beer tour called Clips of Faith (a pun on their tasty Lips of Faith batch beers). They’re looking for “amateur filmmakers, activists, aspiring actors and accidental brilliance in video” to submit films that are 10 seconds to 10 minutes in length. The submission rules are simple, just watch the short movie below for all the details.

And here’s the website. www.clipsoffaith.com

An Hour on the Pan

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’.)