Thursday, August 16, 2012

Radford is ready!

Well this is Radford. He's about 10 weeks old. Radford jumped right on these skis as soon as I tossed them on the floor. He is ready to ski! He has never seen snow, but he seems to know that he will like it. Seeing as he is a Great Pyranees mix, I think he is on target. With his double coat and his double dew claws attached to big webbed feet, I am guessing he will be a great "powder hound". Actually, it is my hope that he will get to go out and do some back country skiing with me by spring. He should be old enough to give it a go this winter I think? In the meantime he will probably be at the shop if you come by.

Also at the shop will be some new toys for the upcoming season. We have been getting shipments in on a daily basis. Dalbello boots were first and then came Black Diamond which was exciting. Our first big shipment of back country gear! I spent a lot of time playing with the packs, checking out the shovels and probes, and trying on boots that were sooo light! I'm very excited about all this new back country stuff.

But let's not forget about resort skiing! We will be back with a strong line of Blizzard skis, the Head skis are amazing this year, Fischer Vacuum boots are expanded with new models, and we will have Lange on board too which is exciting. So there is lot's to get excited about!

To get things rolling we kick off the season on the 25th of this month with the start of our Fall Tent Sale. The sale will run three consecutive weekends through September 9th. We rely on the sale to clear out last years stock and to give us some cash to operate and do staff training before the snow hits. It will be interesting to see how things go this year. On the one hand I feel there may be a bit less interest this fall because of the less than snowy winter last year. Lot's of people skied less than they typically do, and so there may be less carry over ski excitement than there had been the last few years. On the flip side is that we had a lot of carry over gear due to the moderate snowfall so we have marked things down more aggressively than ever before to try to move it all out. And it will be interesting to see how much people poke around at the back country stuff. I have no idea what to expect on that one. We will have Seth Green and Rich Meyer around who are both ex Marmot employees and have serious knowledge to help you learn about (and hopefully purchase) new back country, touring, or side country gear. If it is slower than hoped for they wi;ll be trining the staff and passing on their knowledge. Hopefully Seth and I can reach an agreement to have him working here all winter. He is a sharp and fun guy to have around. And he will add some real expertise to the new catagories we are stocking. Rich is a professional guide that we have reccomended for some years now. As usual, Rich will be doing avalanche safety classes as well as guidingto help you be safe out there (http://www.richmeyeralpineguide.com/).

So another summer has come and gone. The kickoff sale is upon us. Then the hiring/training season after that. Then it will snow. I hope the fall goes by as quickly as the summer did. I'm ready to ski! Hope to see you all next weekend. We can all catch up a bit, and start getting our stoke on. I'm ready! Radford is ready! Are you ready?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Greg - Katherine would like to see more pictures of Radford, please.