Author Archive

Lessons from Genswein: for Experts Only!

As in any professional career, it’s important to stay current on your education. That’s why at BCA we regularly put our sales, marketing and customer service staff through AIARE and CAA avalanche courses. And that’s why I took a two-day workshop at Copper Mountain, Colo. last month with Swiss avalanche rescue führer Manuel Genswein. This is the third workshop I’ve attended with Genswein and my conclusion remains the same: For experts only!

Attending a Genswein clinic is good entertainment: he has a brilliant sense of humor, speaks five languages, and he has a uniquely high-pitched and heavily accented voice reminiscent of the similarly corpulent General Burkhalter in the 1960’s sitcom… Read more

Statement from BCA about “viral” airbag video

The recent avalanche near Montezuma (Colo.) has fueled a media sensation.  The video of Meesh Hytner–captured by Tyler Malay and posted on our website–went viral.  It has been viewed nearly 700,000 times on Youtube, been featured on CNN, Fox News, multiple local and international outlets, and has been seen in Japan, Taiwan and Germany, to name a few. It’s crazy!  We just returned from ISPO (our major tradeshow in Munich, Germany) and walked into a media frenzy.

We normally do not feel compelled to make a statement where accidents and the use of our equipment is involved. But given the viral nature fueled by this stunning and vivid footage, we… Read more

ISPO Part 2: Float airbag video rocks Munich

The European crowd took note this week of the hottest new player in the Euro airbag market: BCA. While we’ve been producing airbags in North America for three years, we only recently got coveted TUV and CE approval to sell them across the pond. At the ISPO show, which ended Wednesday in Munich, Euro retailers especially took notice when we whipped out our secret weapon: footage of our recent airbag save in Colorado. Introducing a new product in a sterile trade show environment is one thing, but showing it working in a violent, real-world avalanche  is 100 times as effective. Talk about cred!

Retailers were upbeat, thanks to a banner… Read more

Powder and smoked salmon at Mt. Baker

With a total of zero powder days to date—and no end in sight to the Colorado drought –we made a quick hit up to Mt. Baker last weekend for some stormchasing, smoked salmon, and the Mt. Baker Beacon Rally.  Talk about core, this is the coolest ski area north of Silverton. They’re calling it a low snow year, but Baker’s base is well over 100 inches already. With a 20-inch storm coming, $130 fares on Southwest, and on open invitation to the Beacon Rally, throwing down for a plane ticket was a no-brainer. Seattle-based BCA sales director Steve Christie met me at the airport with a cooler full of beer… Read more

Vive la BCA! Backcountry Access going big in Europe.

Achtung! Allez! BCA is making a full-on assault in Europe next season. We’ve just moved into a new warehouse near Salzburg, Austria and hired a regional sales manager out of Chamonix, France. Craig Widdicombe will take BCA sales to the next level in France, Switzerland and Italy. He’ll complement the efforts of our existing sales manager for Austria and Germany, Franz Hohensinn. Craig grew up near French-speaking Leysin, Switzerland and comes to us from Heidiskis, a boutique ski maker out of nearby Vevey. He starts tomorrow!

Starting next season, BCA will ship directly from our new Euro HQ/warehouse in Hallein, Austria to retailers in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy.… Read more

New airbag rules to hit commercial airlines

Starting a year from now, it will be easier to travel on commercial airlines with an airbag other than an ABS–unless you’re a gringo. The Geneva, Switzerland-based International Airline Transport Association (IATA) has approved new verbiage in their “dangerous goods regulation” that accommodates all the new airbags that have recently hit the market. In the past, the wording in this regulation was limited to features that are specific to airbags from ABS, the original airbag brand out of Germany. This included limits on the amount of explosive in the ABS pyrotechnic trigger, as well as a limit on the size of the compressed gas cylinder. This verbiage has been detuned… Read more

CAIC Benefit Bash breaks record.

The numbers are in from the CAIC Benefit Bash, held Nov. 12 in Breckenridge. The fourth annual fundraiser grossed $72,000 in revenues and netted $63,000 for the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. This might be the biggest avalanche center fundraiser in North America, right up there with the Utah Avalanche Center fundraiser held every fall in Salt Lake.

The CAIC Benefit Bash was presented by BCA, Voilé, La Sportiva, New Belgium Brewery, and Vail Resorts.  Held at the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge, it hosted 1300 people. Organizers Aaron Carlson and Joe Vandal gave away over $20,000 in product, had 63 silent auction items on hand, and broke all  previous fundraising records… Read more

2011 Training at Silverton Mountain

Here’s a guest post from Kenny Bloggins, writer and guide at my second-favorite resort in North America (you’ll have to guess the first): Silverton Mountain, Colorado. Kenny’s pseudonym is Alex Hunt, or is it the other way around? Anyway, Silverton is getting pounded today and opens this Saturday. If you’re a skier’s skier and you haven’t been to Silverton, put it on your tick list. The terrain is awesome and the attitude is extremely refreshing. No BS here, just great snow, great terrain, and diehard skiers.

The Cement Creek drainage just North of Silverton has been echoing over the last few days from the avalanche explosive testing at Silverton Mountain… Read more

Kitzbuhel avalanche: the ultimate airbag test

We don’t normally make a habit of promoting our competitors, but in this case, they deserve huge credit. At a recent gathering of outdoor retailers in Stockholm, Sweden, organizer Bengt Klingheim (Swedish distributor of both BCA and ABS airbags) invited a local avalanche survivor to recount her miraculous recovery last year in Austria. The incident is one more piece of very convincing evidence that avalanche airbags truly work.

The guest speaker, 30-year-old Stina Sletterström, was caught in an avalanche while skiing off-piste near Kitzbuhel Austria in February of 2010. Unfortunately, her presentation was in Swedish, so I didn’t get much out of it–although, like most American males in Sweden, I… Read more

Guides and airbags: a new “standard of care?”

At the 2011 meeting of the International Commission on Alpine Rescue (ICAR), an interesting question from the Norwegian delegate turned heads: “Is it ethical for a guide to use an airbag, but not offer one to all of his clients?”

It’s a legitimate question, especially considering some conclusive evidence at the meeting, held last month in Are, Sweden. The Italian delegate, Stefano Pivot, described several airbag success stories in his country, including one guide whose life was saved with an ABS airbag. His client, however, was caught in the same avalanche, but was not equipped with an airbag—and wasn’t so lucky.

Norwegian delegate Albert Lunde described an incident in the… Read more