Gonzo-style Alpinism: A Year in the Trenches
Join Mountain Hardwear athlete Freddie Wilkinson for a multi-media presentation as he takes the audience on a hilarious, seat-of-your-pants ride through a single 10 months period when he managed to climb new routes in Patagonia, Alaska, India, and Nepal.  Featuring still photography, video clips, and Wilkinson’s unique brand of sketch story-telling, this show offers a surprising portrait of what it takes to push the limits of technical alpinism, and the unexpected adventures along the way.

Friday, April 23, 7PM | Midwest Mountaineering Outdoor Adventure Expo
University of Minnesota, West Bank
Humphrey Center, Cowles Auditorium
(1 block east of Midwest Mountaineering)
301 19th Avenue South

In between traveling, Wilkinson earned a degree in history from Dartmouth College and worked as a climbing guide in New England and Alaska.  In 2007, Wilkinson established new routes on three different mountains on three different continents: Patagonia’s Cerro Poincinot, The Fin in Alaska, and Mount Mahindra in the Indian Himalaya.  That’s pretty good – but Wilkinson still considers himself to be better at telling stories than he is a climbing mountains.

He lives in Madison, New Hampshire with his girlfriend Janet Bergman in a 12 x 12 cabin with a view of the White Mountains.

Visit Freddie Wilkinson’s Blog at thenamelesscreature.com

Freddie is sponsored by Mountain Hardwear.

Sea to Summit TPU Guide Mapcase

New Sea to Summit products now available for retailers.

• TPU Guide Map Case – 3 sizes
• TPU Accessory Case – 3 sizes
• Wilderness Wash – 3 sizes
• Pocket Wilderness Wash
• Citronella Wilderness Wash – 3 sizes

Contact orders@pembaserves.com or call 608.250.2400 for more information.

Got spring fever? Yeah, us too. The days are getting longer and ever-so-slightly warmer. It’s just not happening fast enough, and we can’t wait.

Brad busted out of here for a long weekend with his wife Vera, in Puerto Rico. He sent us this video of Vera bouldering on the beach. Enjoy.

And, yeah, Brad got a wicked sunburn. That made us feel better. He deserved it, the lucky bastard…

The full story about how we ended up in that smoke-filled rental car – bouncing down the bumpy roads that circumnavigate Mount Rainier with eight refugees from an Alcoholics Anonymous convention in Seattle – may best be told at another time. But the memory of it popped into my head this morning along with the smells of donuts, and cigarettes, and strong perfume, and three days of sweat and polyester topped off with a bit of panic.

Of course, Carl Coy and I supplied the human and the mountain smells. There were four AA conventioneers on each bench seat, and Carl and I sat on strangers’ laps with our packs on our own laps. I was vaguely aware that the picks of my ice axes pointed in a bad direction, but I couldn’t fix it. Nobody wore a seatbelt. Everyone in the car smoked non-stop. We didn’t mind: We were penniless, and glad for the ride.

That morning, on the summit of Rainier, we had watched as the giant bergshrund at the top of Winthrop Glacier calved off. Too late, we realized that we were on it. Carl winced every time we hit a bump in the road. We found out later that he had torn two ligaments in his knee. The walk from the summit wasn’t that bad except that by virtue of our self-rescue we ended up in Paradise Camp. It’s a nice and well-named place, and – unfortunately for us – on the wrong side of the mountain from where we needed to be.

“Ice cream!”

The car careened into a frantic u-turn, abruptly. Carl screamed but nobody noticed. Everyone else was screaming, too. At high speed, there’s actually very little difference between cries of pain and cries of joy. The driver of the car was a petite blonde woman named Lucy. She had the high-energy bounce of a cheer-leader on crack. It was her sudden mission to get ice cream from the shop that we were passing on the other side of the road. So that’s where we were going, just like that.

“Hey, I was thinking,” Lucy said in rapid-fire staccato between bites from her ice-cream cone,”We need to get back to Seattle for our meetings, so we go west here. You guys need to go east. Let me get you another ride.” With that, she walked right out into the road in front of a pick-up truck, both hands held up like a crossing guard. The truck screeched to a halt, the bumper stopping just inches from Lucy. She bounced around to the driver side of the truck, talking fast and pointing to us. Lucy beckoned us over as the truck’s driver kicked open the passenger-side door. That fast, we had a new ride.

We piled in. The driver nodded. We pulled off in silence. After a few moments, this is what the driver said:

You boys climbers? Well, let me tell you something.

This spotted owl crap is bullshit. I’ve seen that bird. It’s just a bird.

I’m a third-generation logger, and my eldest son just joined me in the woods. I want my grand-kids to do this. It’s a good life.

Don’t let people tell you that a bird is more important than people. I just wanted you to know.

This is where I’m lettin’ you off.

He pulled over. We had gone about a quarter mile, total. For the first time, I noticed the handgun in his lap. There were giant chainsaws in the bed of the truck, and a shovel. (I remember the shovel, clearly.) For sure, this guy could find a spot on the map that nobody else would ever find.

We thanked him for the ride, and got out.

Last night, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and came across a passage that resonated with me, which I paraphrased to 140 characters:

Conflict [will] take place in cities as often as battlefields, be fueled by ideas as much as weapons, engage cultures as much as armies.

And it seems to me that we are already at war with ourselves. We live in a time of unparalleled changes and challenges. Battle lines are being drawn between those who recognize and embrace change, and those who fear and resist it. There will be casualties. Right now, we’re being distracted by who’s right, and who’s wrong. Disinformation campaigns have already begun, and are taking hold. But that’s not what it’s about:

It’s about the trees, not the birds.

And it’s really not about the trees [oil, precious metals, coal, healthcare, business paradigms, whatever]. It’s about the fact that no matter what we want for them, our grandchildren will be doing something different than us.

Recognizing this now will leave more options for what our grandkids might be doing, later.

Effective February 28th, Pemba Serves is resigning from Jetboil to focus on other aspects of our business. Pemba Serves would like to thank Jetboil for many years of support. Going forward, Jetboil will be represented in the territory by Larry Hanson and Tim Harwood of Adventure Sport Marketing.

We wish all involved the best of luck and much success going forward. If you have any questions or comments about this transition, please contact Brad Werntz, directly.

Adventure Medical Kits and Pemba Serves is supporting Midwest Mountaineering staff member Sam Usem with medical supplies to give to medical personnel and other people in need during his relief trip to Haiti.

Sam is a volunteer and Americas Committee Vice Chair for Compatible Technology International (CTI).  CTI works to improve the lives of people in developing countries by designing and distributing food and water technologies that are appropriate to local cultures.

Thank you for your support of my work in Haiti. I am currently on my way down there with 10 grinders and more on the way, along with more than enough equipment that was donated by the folks at Adventure Medical Kits. Please forward this along to them, and pass along my thanks.

There is a good chance that I will be speaking at Midwest Mountaineering’s Outdoor Adventure Expo this April about my work in Haiti and the Outdoor Industry’s response. If I do, I will be sure acknowledge your support. Once again thank you all for your invaluable support.

Follow Sam’s jorney on Compatible Technology’s blog and twitter feed.

photos: Greg Maino | Juskuz Photography | @gregmaino | flickr

Two of our biggest hats here at Pemba Serves are our “Brand Ambassador” and “Business Consultant” hats.  You’ll find one of these on our heads most any given day. Today, I’m sporting the big Ten Gallon Business Consultant hat. It bends my ears down a bit because I haven’t quite grown into it, but there you go. Honestly, I look like Dopey when I wear it, and I may think like him too. But – ya know – it’s my hat to wear today, so “giddyap.” Just don’t shoot me. I’m only the messenger.

This might be new news to some of you, but it was all over the internet last week: Several outdoor brands tested sales at online retailer giltman.com. This members-only site offers brief (twelve to thirty-six hour) sales of high-end, typically fashion-forward product, at a deep discount. That the site ventured into the outdoor space naturally drew a response. One industry buying group in particular hit this head-on with a round of e-mail newsletters to their members. I’ll spare you the highlights. It’s out there if you want to find it.

This giltman.com experiment is not the start nor the end of efforts like this. For years, many outdoor brands have been in Mervyn’s, TJ Maxx, and liquidation specialists like them across the country. This has been a not-so-secret secret, and just about everybody has put product in one of these locations at one time or another.  Not to mention, there are dozens and dozens of online sites (like gilt.com) that specialize in moving inventories. Vendors have used them and will continue to do so. (Don’t be surprised, now; you’re warned.)

Given the current manufacturing model, vendors have to do this. The supply chain is broken, and until it’s fixed or collapses completely we’re going to be dealing with these issues. It’s painfully simple: In a two-season buy/sell cycle, whatever’s left at the end of season one has to go away before season two starts to ship.

So, with this in mind, here are five things to think about if you’re interested in a Gilt-free future:

1) Know The Math: Margins for both vendors and retailers are really similar. Most vendors need to make a minimum of 30% to 40% to make ends meet. The product that appeared at giltman.com last week was excess current-season (F09/W10) merchandise that had already been offered at closeout to existing retailers at up to 50% off. For most vendors, this means that they were already losing money on it. They have to move it because they’re paying warehousing on it, they’re paying interest on the debt to own it, and – most pressing – new spring stuff is showing up any day now so they’ll have to pay to have it moved around the warehouse. It’s gotta go somewhere. And, after two straight months or more of closeout offerings, it’s going to show up wherever somebody can buy it in bulk.

If you’re a small retailer and want to make money on this stuff, buy it during the early close-out offerings when the discount gets to be attractive. A 20% discount early-season when the product is still turning at full retail is better than a deeper promotional discount, later. Bring in what you can use in ones and twos, sell it for full-retail for as long as you can, and then when the bottom drops out take it to your cost to get rid of it. Hopefully, you’ll have made some extra margin before this happens. In regard to closeouts, remember that anything at or below 40% is likely rock-bottom for the vendor, so at that point be prepared to buy in bulk or see it appear somewhere else. And know that you’ve had your chance and – hopefully – you’re out of the product at a higher margin, already.

2) “Do You Mind If I Dance With Your Date?”: You’re at the Sock Hop, the music’s howling, and if you’re just sitting in a booth sipping on a milk-shake while everybody else is shaking it, you may go home alone. What’s this mean? Well, in an environment where everybody’s looking to hook up there’s no room for wall-flowers. You need to make a commitment, or commitments will be made without you.

Here’s how it works: Nobody can make inventory just to sit on it. Preseason commitments from retailers are declining; manufacturers need to take more risks, accordingly. Nobody wants to get left holding the bag of goods. If retailers don’t prebook it, and don’t take the close-outs, then where’s it going to go? As nice as it would be to send all of this stuff to Haiti or some other charity venture, there’s no way for vendors to do this and not go out of business. If you’re a retailer and you’ve had two or more opportunities to own this product, accept that – in the end – it’s going go home with someone.

So what if you brought the brand to the ball? You didn’t dance, and it’s going to go off with somebody who’s willing to dance. It could be with your best friend, or somebody you don’t like, but in either case, enjoy the milkshake and get ready to get in on the next dance. Your turn will come. But only if you dance. So get ready to shake it, next time.

3) “New York City?!?”: The old Pace Picante Salsa ads had this punchline: “This salsa’s made in NEW YORK CITY?!?” And maybe that’s where excess outdoor inventories are going to go, too. Or to Bentonville, Arkansas, or somewhere else. Why? Because that’s where people are creating different distribution channels that can move large inventories of product, quickly.

You’re a brick-and-mortar at the end of a dirt road at the base of a famous crag? Great, but where’s your e-commerce site? Do you have a discount rack in your store? How about a catalog? Have you considered an Amazon store? These days, you don’t even need skill-sets to develop these channels; all of them can be sub-contracted inexpensively. But, bottom line: Multi-channel is not optional anymore. Any distribution channel that you leave on the table – that you don’t put your own brand on – will be filled by somebody else. And that someone else may be in New York City.

Your customer who lives across the dirt road from you? They may be buying stuff you stock from New York City too, if you’ve not given them the option to buy it from you the way that they want to buy it.

4) “I Dreamed A Little Dream About The Future, And None Of Us Were In It.” At the recent Unconference gathering at #ORWinter, Malcolm Daly stopped the room with this statement: “If you’re a middleman in this economy, you’re dead. And guess what? We’re all middlemen.” We all knew that this was true the moment we heard him say it.

We’re seeing and experiencing disruptive change in a number of industries. Media, advertising, and related fields are the first in line (450+ specialty magazines closed in 2009), and retail is not far behind. What’s driving this? Changes to the way that people communicate, buy, and relate to one another and themselves are shortening the distance between producers and consumers. You like a piece of jewelry that your friend is wearing? She probably has the Etsy.com site for the jeweler (and it may even be stamped into the piece.) Want to hear what Kristof thinks of the war in the Congo? Friend him on Facebook. Do you like the jacket I’m wearing? Check out [YourFavoriteBrand].com, and they’ll have links to buy it from your phone. From your location-enabled phone, they can probably direct you to the company store nearby (conveniently via Yelp or FourSquare, and go there by 5pm and they’ll e-mail you a coupon!)

Does this mean that retail is dead? No, far from it. But we need to build our businesses around something other than exclusives. Doing things as we’ve always done is not going to work in the very near future. Don’t believe me? Just ask National Geographic Adventure.

5) The Most Important Brand You Sell: There seems to be a collective memory that “Specialty” at one point meant “we have brands that nobody else has.” Whether this was ever true or not is – at this point – not relevant. It will never be that way, again, (and whether it ever was is another conversation.)

It’s a truth that the most dominant vendors in our little industry also have the broadest distribution. They sell to every retailer, they have their own retail stores, catalog, and internet direct distribution, also. So if exclusivity is really the root of all specialty retail sales, why is this the case? Because, the truth is, it’s not about the stuff, and it’s not about the brand.

It’s about you, and your store. You are your most important brand.

How do I know this is true? Because thirty years ago we sold tents from Black Ice, and fleece from Forrest. EB was the best climbing shoe out there, and Fabiano and Pivetta were the two best hiking boots in the world. Almost every outdoor store sold wool army fatigues, because nobody else made decent hiking and backpacking pants. Royal Robbins sold carabiners and climbing shoes, and long-billed baseball hats for hiking; they had not yet started to make clothing. And we bought this stuff – stuff you can’t get anymore from brands that don’t exist – at places like Midwest Mountaineering, Rutabaga, Laacke & Joys, Erehwon, Uncle Dan’s, and the Alpine Shop. Guess what? Thirty years later the stores are still around and the brands they sold back then are mostly long gone.

The best brands – the best specialty stores – long ago realized that the only exclusive that they had was on their own brand, and have built that from the ground up and never given it away to anybody else. Own your own brand, and you don’t have to worry about what’s sold elsewhere, and for how much. Just worry about how to get your customers to engage with your brand, and nothing else will ever matter beyond that.

photo: Cowboy | aerodesign.pl / Piotr | Creative Commons

photos: Bryan Kuhn / Erik Sundberg

A lot of people had a lot of fun last weekend… Michigan Ice Fest happens every year with the tremendous effort of Downwind Sports, and after 20-something years (depending on whose version you get) Munising gets virtually overrun the first weekend in February with ice climbers both new and veteran.

Kayland, Scarpa, and LaSportiva all sent boots this year, Mountain Hardwear had plenty of apparel to go around, and we brought our own Petzl demo gear to add to the assortment of Black Diamond crampons and tools. The word from Bill Thompson every year: “Send more crampons, please!” This year was especially thin, but no one really complained – sure a few grumbles were heard here and there – Bill quieted all that down with an “Email our gear sponsors!” comment.

Downwind Sports routinely runs out of boots and crampons for classes and demo. People who have never climbed ice before – in some instances have never climbed before – can just show up, pay their “Fest Toll” of a whopping $25 (if they don’t have gear, add $15). If you want to get all-day professional instruction from a world-class climber? Costs you $99 ($35 for the kids’ class) – your gear is included. If you don’t want the instruction? Hope you can get up early for the demo gear distribution – if not or you strike out, come by the Curtains and be patient.

Its cheap to stay, cheap to eat – Sydney’s hosts the Fest in a room upstairs, the food’s good and drinks are plentiful – and very reasonable to attend. No wonder why over 480 people dropped in.
Flying into Marquette, MI late on a Thursday night in February was about as exotic as my life could get. I’m a climber from Colorado and heard there was ice here, in the cold and windswept upper peninsula. Not just normal ice of course, ice that had drawn climbers to the region for a festival running into its 26th year. Really???

Here’s what Ben Clark, a Mountain Hardwear sponsored alpinist thought:

For all the promise of cold, it was the warmth of the locals that made the trip so worthwhile. Heading out to Sand Point on Friday with Rep Bryan Kuhn and his friends, I was treated to thunker swings in a savory pillar of steep waterfall ice. We shared it with several locals, looking to experience the privacy that makes ice climbing so cherished in this region about to be inundated by weekend festivities. I was psyched to be there and happy to be surrounded by such nice people.

The weekend went really well and the festival had many attendees. The enthusiasm and commitment that it takes to learn ice climbing seemed to be innate qualities of the beginners who showed up for the clinics I would get to teach. Swinging, kicking and then finally smoothing out into climbing and hooking, the learning curve matched the motivation and it was clear that ice climbers were born both days. That is a real victory for climbing, to see all ages and body types learning about this activity that was once the realm of frozen high altitude alpinists.

That is the type of celebration of spirit any ice festival could learn from and that will have the hidden routes of grand island beckoning me like a siren for years to come. Most importantly I feel like I made friends and met new partners, what more could you ask for? Oh yea, there was free beer too.

Were you at the Michigan Ice Fest this year? Tell us about your experience!