Blog

Whirlwind of a week: BCC / Salt Lake / OR

Another season of tradeshows has begun, and as always, it’s busy for us. Busy in a great way though- our new products coming out next season have been well received and are generating some buzz.
Before it all began though, I decided to come out for a few days to see what all the whining was about with the Wasatch snowpack. I must say, even though it wasn’t phenomenal, if you knew what aspect to get on it was pretty good, and it certainly wasn’t as bad as Colorado has been…
The first day entailed a nice long tour up Silver Fork and over onto Flagstaff, with some deep and… 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

Hunting For Slabs on a Level 1 Avalanche Course

Hunting for slabs on a Level 1 Avalanche Course – Matt Wade – Peak Mountain Guides
The avalanche bulletin for the Northern San Juans read “Recent winds have formed tender slabs on lee slopes near and above treeline. These wind slabs have developed on a very weak and fragile snow structure.”  As we were beginning the Level 1 Avalanche Course it was apparent the snowpack was shallow and variable, and it would require keen observation skills to travel and ski safely.

After an introductory day of classroom sessions and a field session to learn companion rescue, we started our second day with a specific goal to learn more about the… Read more

Ringing in the New Year with Powder!

Here’s a sweet video made by Donni Vognild, a Northwest photographer and all-around radical adventure woman. If you live in one of the regions hit by La Nada, this video will have you drooling:
http://web.me.com/donnivogs/http___web.me.com_donnivogs/My_Albums/Pages/NCascades_NY_2012.html… Read more

Adventures in Night Skiing

Who says we have to be limited to daylight hours to play in the snow? If you’ve got a 9-5 job and can’t afford to take off days during the week to get your fix, ski at night! Skinning up runs at local ski resorts in the National Forest allow for a fairly safe place to play at night. Just be sure to steer clear of the groomers that are working on the trails.
The nights are chilly but absolutely beautiful. I’m always armed with my trusty BCA Stash pack, I can sip water all the way up without worrying about the line freezing. I’ve also been rocking the Alpine… Read more

Where’s all the snow this year? In Europe!

Every season in Europe for the past ten years we have been hearing about record snow falls across the pond. Well now it’s finally our turn! The season started out with a panic as resorts were pushing back opening dates and it was looking like a similar winter to last year. How wrong were we! It’s January now and the snow keeps falling. We have now received more snow in the last few weeks than the whole of last season combined. So now it’s time to dust off those fat skis and break out the snorkel because finally the snow is here!!
Here’s a movie and some pictures of the… 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

Skiing the Drought

La Nina has pretty much turned into La Nada recently but a nice little pulse came through WA on Monday so we decided to head out and check on the conditions. We were pretty psyched with the results! Plus, it was an awesome excuse to keep getting the sled dialed in for ski touring access. And, I was able to catch up with two old friends from Colorado, CB and Mickey (formerly of Keystone Patrol and Wilderness Sports). Here’s what it looked like:… 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

Indian Peak Pits

Engineer Adam and I got out this past weekend to trek around in the Indian Peaks, and while the snow turned out to be a pretty awful blend of thin crusts and styrofoam, the sun and limited wind still provided us a chance to hunker down and study some snow.
The pit showed three semi-distinct wind layers of varying depths but with similar densities and grain types throughout (pencil hardness/wind-packed rounded grains). Our compression test resulted in a Q2 sheer at eight hits from the shoulder (CTH) on a middle layer. Unfortunately this deep wind drift was not indicative of our line at all, which consisted instead of shallow pockets of snow… Read more