Last evening at the opening of Cripple Creek Backcountry ski shop here in Carbondale. The quiver. That's Trab over on the right, and Hagan. DPS is in there and our locally custom made Meier skis. Cripple Creek is a specialty retailer along the lines of what we see occasionally in Europe, a small intimate shop with select brands and superb service from employees and owners who use and know their products. It's a retail model I like, but no doubt is hard to sustain.
It’s always been strange not to have a core backcountry skiing retailer here in our little Colorado berg with a ton of ski mountaineers and rando racers in the area. More, being a ski blogger without a nearby ski shop to work with on occasion has been a hassle. No more. Now we’ve got a nice specialty retailer nearby we can send people to and work with when it comes to things like ski testing and boot fitting. Cripple Creek Backcountry had their grand opening last evening. The usual suspects showed up. Fun to see the snenergy (snow energy) in full force. I think most of the folks had seen our ski burning video and thus knew we were up for an excellent season. So, congratulations to our new retailer!
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
