In the back rooms of retail shops all over the country, mountains of plastic polybags are piling up every day. Whenever a new shipment arrives from a vendor, there’s always a sense of excitement at unboxing time: cool, new stuff has been delivered and the employees are eager to get it out onto the floor.

Then a grim reality sets in: nearly every item—from apparel to accessories to hard goods—comes encased in a polybag. And that polybag needs to be disposed of.Ìę

Polybags are not easy to recycle, which is why most towns don’t. Yet so many polybags come printed with the recycling symbol, which is deceptive and counterproductive. When consumers see that symbol, they assume the bag is safe to toss into their single-stream recycling bin. This “wishcycling” results in clogged machinery at the sorting facilities.

The outdoor industry is well aware of its polybag problem and many companies have made steps to move away from them. PrAna has nixed them altogether and pioneered a new roll-packing method. Grunden’s has sourced a home-compostable paper bag that it now uses for its apparel. NEMO has done away with plastic tent pole bags.Ìę

Cutting ties with polybags is not easy. The thin film is very effective at protecting items from liquid and dirt during transit. Polybags are cheap and widely available throughout virtually all supply chains.

The Plastic Impact Alliance, a coalition of more than 430 outdoor companies intent on eliminating single-use plastic from their businesses, and Eco-Cycle, one of the largest non-profit recyclers and Zero Waste organizations in the U.S., have just launched a three-month pilot program in Boulder, Colorado, to collect, recycle, and quantify the polybags accumulated from 11 outdoor businesses along the Pearl Street Mall.Ìę

“Eco-Cycle is excited to support the commitment of our partners in the outdoor industry to develop an effective and efficient model of recovering polybags from retail settings,” said Kate Christian, corporate sustainability manager at Eco-Cycle. “This pilot will explore a novel bicycle-based collection system which minimizes environmental impacts and costs in hopes of establishing a replicable example of zero-emission collections.”

How the Pearl St. Polybag Pilot Works

Once a week, two (paid) students from Boulder High School will pedal a custom trailer from store to store and collect the polybags. The students will deliver them to șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc.’s new Pearl St. headquarters for storage. Once a month, Eco-Cycle trucks will collect the bags and take them to the Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials (CHaRM). There, Eco-Cycle will catalog data about polybag generation rates, bale them, and send them to Trex. Trex uses polybags as the primary feedstock in producing their line of composite decking, a long-lasting product that does not require treatment with toxic chemicals, and simultaneously decreases the burden on hardwood trees like redwoods and cedars that are typically used to construct decks and piers.

“We will use the data we gather from the pilot to guide the development of polybag recycling efforts across retail brands’ operating footprints,” said Christian.Ìę

The businesses committed to the pilot are all members of the Plastic Impact Alliance: Artilect, Backcountry, Black Diamond, čóÂáĂ€±ô±ô°ùĂ€±č±đČÔ, Helly Hansen, Himali, Norrona, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inc., Patagonia, Sherpani, and Stio.

“Every single Plastic Impact Alliance member I speak with has ambitions to find polybag alternatives in the long term,” said PIA co-founder Kristin Hostetter. “Some companies are already there, some have just barely started the journey, and we’ve got everything in between. In the meantime, though, the polybags are piling up at retail shops across the country. With this pilot program, we hope to put some numbers on the problem, and as a result encourage brands to step on the gas and work together to find solutions. And of course, we will also divert a whole lot of plastic from the landfill during the three month period.”

Some large national retailers (like REI, Patagonia, and The North Face) already collect and properly recycle polybags at their retail locations. But the many hundreds of independent specialty outdoor retailers around the country simply don’t have the resources to do so.

“It’s a massive problem,” said Nate Porter, founder of Salida Mountain Sports in Colorado. “Sometimes the mountain of plastic waste we have to deal with after a shipment is received takes up more space than the shipment itself. And we are not equipped to properly recycle the stuff. As an industry we need to find more sustainable alternatives to polybags.”

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On April 16, 2019, David Lama, Hansjörg Auer, and Jess Roskelley died in an avalanche on Howse Peak in the Canadian Rockies. All three were on The North Face climbing team.

At the time, the trio was seeking the second ascent of a route called M-16, which had been climbed once, back in 1999. The first ascensionists described pitches of overhanging ice, blinding spindrift, and collapsing cornices that nearly killed one of their party.

But in alpine climbing, unrepeated routes are rare trophies, and Lama, Auer, and Roskelley were some of the best in the world. Why wouldn’t The North Face give them its blessing? And perhaps the brand was right to do so; according to photos recovered from Roskelley’s phone, the three made it to the summit. That was before the avalanche.

When I heard the news, I grieved with the rest of the climbing community. In the past few years, I’ve lost two friends to the mountains. This tragedy felt too familiar.

I wondered if Lama, Auer, and Roskelley would have chosen to team up if it weren’t for the convenience of sharing a sponsor. If they would have picked a less hazardous route if they hadn’t been vying with other athletes for The North Face’s limited pool of funding. If they would have turned back earlier had Roskelley and Lama not been so new to The North Face’s team—only about a year each—and perhaps still trying to prove themselves. If they would have called it sooner if not for the expenses already incurred.

Hadley Hammer, Lama’s girlfriend and an eight-year member of The North Face ski team, believes Lama’s motivations on Howse Peak were purely intrinsic. The North Face global sports marketing director Jamie Starr added that, for many years, the brand has had a rigorous team peer review process for expeditions and is careful to never put any external pressure on athletes to take undue risk—including on Howse Peak. Still, these are familiar worries for many athletes. And there are other concerns with the current sponsorship system, particularly for winter ambassadors who have only a short season with uncertain conditions to accomplish many contractual obligations, Hammer said.

“Two of my three injuries occurred while filming,” she explained, noting that it’s impossible to say whether they would have happened without a camera present. Both injuries left her with medical debt, which she was left to pay on her own. “While there isn’t direct pressure to perform crazy stunts, there remains an inevitable pressure,” she said. “And I don’t think it has to be that way.”

When these three men died, The North Face, by all accounts, rose to the occasion, footing the bill for loved ones’ flights and travel expenses. Providing therapy and support. Paying for the funerals.

None of this was required—athlete contracts rarely mention, let alone cover, such expenses. And all of it is certainly costly to a brand. The North Face stepped up, said Hammer. It did the right thing, handling it all in just the right way.

But while members of The North Face team certainly grieved, the brand, through no fault of its own, ultimately emerged looking like a hero, its reputation untarnished.

Stories like this highlight the imbalances that exist in the sponsorship equation. Today, controversy accompanies everything from how athletes are selected, to their role in hitting a brand’s DEI targets, to the contracts they sign. As that equation becomes more critical to the success of outdoor brands, it may be time to rethink it.

A Broken Model

When news broke of the tragedy on Howse Peak, Horst EidenmĂŒller, a law professor at the University of Oxford, was in the midst of examining some of the same questions about the hidden pressures athletes face. In August and September of 2018, he conducted interviews with 40 sponsored athletes across a range of adventure sports, from alpine climbing to big-mountain skiing to freestyle motocross, and later published his findings in the Marquette Sports Law Review.

EidenmĂŒller’s conclusion: “These contracts are unbalanced,” he said. “Sponsors—let me be blunt—they are ripping off the athletes.” The trouble is that athletes are easy prey; most interviewees told EidenmĂŒller that they’re more passionate about their sports than they are about money. That lets brands get away with paying them, on average, $5,000 to $20,000 a year for what often amounts to a quarter- to half-time job. That’s barely enough to cover their training, health care, avalanche education, and other expenses. Even top-tier athletes like Alex Honnold, who make salaries somewhere in the six-figure range, are a steal, EidenmĂŒller said.

That’s because marketing today relies heavily on personality, dynamic storytelling, and dialogue, explained Jonathan Retseck. Retseck is a founder and managing partner of talent management firm RXR Sports and represents an impressive roster of outdoor industry bigwigs, like Jimmy Chin, Alex Honnold, Scott Jurek, and Kate Courtney. “We’re also seeing more and more consulting work integrated into [athlete] contracts,” Retseck added, explaining that brands increasingly rely on athletes to help develop new products, provide design input, and shape marketing campaigns. “All of that is extremely valuable to a brand.”

Just how valuable? From his analysis of annual revenues and marketing budgets of some top sponsors, EidenmĂŒller estimated that big international brands are making as much as millions of dollars in additional revenue from their household-name athletes. Compared to that, he said, even a six-figure salary is a paltry sum.

“The picture that emerges is that of a market tilted heavily towards satisfying the interests of the sponsors,” EidenmĂŒller said.

Thanks to the COVID-19 boost, the outdoor sector is booming. That influx of revenue has allowed more brands to create athlete teams or expand existing ones. And thanks to the recent push for brands to improve representation of diverse adventurers, athlete teams have been hauled even further into the spotlight.

After all, athletes are the faces of a brand. They’re also usually inexpensive, on short contracts (typically just one to three years), and easy to turn over to meet the needs of the day.

According to two former La Sportiva athletes who asked to remain anonymous for fear of being passed over for future sponsorships, La Sportiva dropped about half its North American athlete team—close to 45 people—earlier this year via a mass email. A number of the new 2021 La Sportiva athletes are people of color and best known for being outspoken on social media on issues of race and social justice.

“We reviewed our current situation and future plans and ultimately made some tough calls,” said Quinn Carrasco, marketing manager for La Sportiva North America. “It’s been a huge learning process.” The brand primarily offers athletes one-year contracts, requires regular social media posts in exchange for gear, and offers no monetary compensation to most ambassadors. La Sportiva dropped a similar percentage of athletes in 2020. Carrasco said it’s hard to let ambassadors go but that turnover is an inevitable part of any athlete program and will naturally fluctuate from year to year.

Steve House, a legendary alpinist who now consults for brands building athlete teams, explained that this high-quantity, high-turnover system does make sense for some brands.

“The thing is that you have no idea who’s going to pan out,” he said. “You have 100 athletes and one of them is going to be Alex Honnold, and you have no idea which one.”

Mentorship Over Sponsorship

Scarpa CEO Kim Miller, who is Asian American, also noticed a hole in the demographics of Scarpa’s athlete team in 2020. But for Miller, the answer wasn’t to bring on a host of green, unvetted athletes.

“The first thing I realized was that there just aren’t many people of color in our outdoor sports, industry, and community,” Miller said. “And the second thing is that you can’t just walk into a field and say, ‘Grow, plants, grow!’ These things really have to be developed.”

For Miller, the answer was to start a mentorship program for up-and-coming athletes. The program would allow the brand to both maintain existing relationships with its athletes and give new athletes the resources they need to navigate the industry, advance in their respective sports, and market themselves effectively.

Called the Scarpa Athlete Mentorship Initiative, or SAMI, the six-month program matches each mentee with an existing Scarpa athlete. It also provides mentees with gear and networking opportunities. However, mentees aren’t required to use or post about Scarpa gear; there are no strings attached, Miller explained. “This was never about creating more athletes on our team.”

Aidan Goldie, a science teacher, ski mountaineer, and diversity advocate based in Carbondale, Colorado, was selected as part of the inaugural SAMI class. He and his mentor, Chris Davenport, ski together and text on a regular basis.

“It’s a really intentional program that makes sure these athletes from diverse backgrounds are set up for success,” Goldie said. “It’s given me a lot of connections in the industry. And Chris has been a great resource.”

The mentorship program, he said, is doing exactly what it set out to: bridge historic inequities by lifting new voices up.

The Third Model

Over the past year, a third model of sponsorship has emerged: eschewing the somewhat elitist idea of the athlete altogether and instead sponsoring changemakers from diverse backgrounds who can speak to new audiences and untapped markets.

Backcountry pioneered that model when it launched its Breaking Trail program this April. Instead of scrambling to start new relationships with people of color, which could come off as tokenizing, the brand moved to sponsor seven prominent advocates and community leaders with whom it had already built close relationships.

While plenty of outdoor brands had partnered with culturally diverse advocates for occasional campaigns, this reimagined take on sponsorship broke new ground. Ambassadors were selected not based on past ascents or expeditions, but on their nonprofit involvement. And the brand intends to add new ambassadors and build upon the program in the future.

Diversity Without Exploitation

Widening the definition of who can be a sponsored athlete is certainly a big step when it comes to inclusivity, but it doesn’t solve the power imbalances that EidenmĂŒller uncovered in his research. And some athletes believe the shift could exacerbate those imbalances.

After all, the current structure tends to provide less compensation to athletes who “achieve” less. But today, the role of an athlete isn’t just to tag summits, and some, like Andrew Alexander King, worry that the other, equally important work will go undercompensated.

King, who is African American, is a sponsored mountaineer pursuing the Seven Summits.

“I think athletes of color are often taken advantage of,” he said. Part of that is because, due to historic inequities, athletes of color are less likely to have had the resources to understand how the sponsorship system works and negotiate effectively. “Think of it like a race,” he said. “Athletes of color have been standing outside the stadium, and the world has just let them in. But the race has already started, and by now, an athlete of privilege is already two laps ahead.”

In that sense, if the athlete is climbing or skiing at a lower level than an athlete from a privileged background, it’s perfectly reasonable, and shouldn’t result in fewer opportunities.

Plus, there’s the matter of supply and demand, King said. Athletes of color are few and far between, and right now an image of a Black man climbing in branded gear is extremely valuable. Many boilerplate contracts, which include lifetime licensing for images, don’t reflect that. So, when King talks to a potential sponsor, he starts by demanding changes.

“You can have my photos for one year,” he said. “Any time after that you have to re-sign or go through contracts. If you put my face up in 2023 without my consent, you’re profiting off that, which is exploiting my story and my culture to benefit your profits.”

Brands, he said, would do well to listen. Or, better yet, offer athletes of color what they’re worth in the first place.

Calling for Change

King’s negotiations often catch sponsors by surprise. That’s because, EidenmĂŒller said, brands hold all the power in those conversations; they’re not used to negotiation.

Mentorship, à la Scarpa’s SAMI program, could help bridge that power gap and give young athletes the tools they need to negotiate with confidence. More transparency around contract terms and salaries, which are currently guarded as “proprietary,” would also give athletes and brands the information they need to reach fair terms.

While EidenmĂŒller believes athlete contracting would most benefit from regulatory oversight, he said the faster, more practical solution is for brands to take responsibility for the outsized power they hold over athletes. The onus should be on them to carefully spell out all the implications for new athletes or ambassadors, and to offer the stability of longer contracts, increased and stable financial compensation, and/or health insurance whenever possible.

Where the Responsibility Lies

As for limiting risk?

“I think athletes bear some responsibility to know their own limits, and to know them before they’re in a place where those limits are being tested,” Hammer said. “Plus, it’s the athletes [who are] coming up with these ideas. We’re asking the brand to support us. Even if The North Face or other brands scaled back [on their interest in dangerous expeditions], I don’t know if we would.”

Difficult realities are easier to absorb if we have someone to blame. Preferably, a faceless entity with deep pockets. But deep down, I know Hammer is right.

At least one of the friends I lost in the mountains was chasing a personal speed record at the time of his death. Eventually, he hoped to be sponsored. But both friends had gone out, first and foremost, in search of the sublime. In a world without funding, social media, or external gratification, they would have done it anyway.

As La Sportiva’s Carrasco said, “Ultimately, our goal with sponsorship is just to align projects—we want to work with people who are highly motivated. When our goals align with theirs, that’s when we can help each other out.”

But even if brands don’t push their athletes or demand certain objectives, they are still in the business of selecting and paying people with enough passion and grit to push those limits. For that reason, contracts need to clearly stipulate who is responsible when the worst happens, EidenmĂŒller said. If someone gets injured or sick, how long until they have to be performing again? If someone dies in the mountains, who foots the bill?

The Future of Sponsorship

As brands get bigger and add to their athlete rosters, more people than ever before will be sponsored in some way, EidenmĂŒller said. The market will grow more competitive as it crowds with voices talking up their own achievements—and more jaded as audiences wisen to influencer marketing, which right now, House said, is likely coming off the peak of its popularity.

“I think the reality is that social media influencers don’t have much influence,” he said. “Audiences today can see right through those sponsored posts. The reality is that they just don’t work.” In the future, he expects the age of the social media influencer to fizzle, and for authenticity to once again dominate the playing field.

This presents a golden opportunity for brands to get ahead of the shift and select athletes who are both champions of their sport and genuine pillars of their community—not just salespeople. To do that right, they’re going to need to allocate more marketing budget to find the right ambassadors, build quality relationships, and compensate them like they would any other employee, said King.

Quality over quantity—in how athletes engage with their communities and how brands treat their ambassadors—is about to become the rule of the day. And the brands that figure that out fastest will come out on top.

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Last March, we all got really comfortable living life online. Even my three-year-old added “Zoom” to his vocabulary—and not in reference to trucks. As for all the online shopping we’d already been doing? We did a whole lot more of it. In fact, 2020 online spending was up 44 percent year over year, according to research organization Digital Commerce 360.

And yet, this summer, many brands that have long succeeded in online, direct-to-consumer and partner-retailer sales (e.g., REI) are opening up new brick-and-mortar locations. Their reasoning: having a physical location will increase brand awareness among new customers and garner further trust with current customers. Oh, and they hope the stores will do better than break even.

Case in point: this summer, online giant Backcountry is putting its money where the customer is and opening two new retail locations in Park City, Utah, and Boulder, Colorado. The brand will rely on lessons from its 2019 pop-up presence in New York City—namely, that a store needs to offer more than just “one-and-done transactions,” said Chris Purkey, senior VP of customer experience and head of retail for Backcountry. To do that, the brick-and-mortar locations will have experts (dubbed Gearheads) on site to help customers plan trips, host events like film screenings, and organize volunteer service days with local nonprofits. Ultimately, retail locations will allow the brand to take a page from the indie gear shop playbook and add value in a way that a stand-alone website can’t.

It’s about meeting customers where they are—and that’s omnichannel, Purkey explained. “In recent years, there’s been a convergence of retail models,” he said. “You’ve got pure-play, e-commerce retailers like us now launching into brick and mortar, and traditional retailers investing heavily in digital capabilities.”

Black Diamond, which has historically sold either direct to consumers or through partner retailers, is also slowly expanding its own retail presence. Since 2019, the brand has opened flagship locations in its hometown of Salt Lake City and nearby Park City, as well as in Big Sky, Montana. Black Diamond will open a store in Boulder, Colorado, this July, and has three others in the works.

All of Black Diamond’s stores take an aesthetic approach to community integration: the Big Sky site features local tie-ins like Montana barnwood, and the Park City shop has a memorial to a hometown athlete. Said Devin Gillette, Black Diamond’s director of retail, “It’s not the quick, plug-and-play retail store where you’ll walk in and it will be like, ‘Oh, it’s a Black Diamond store.’ It’s going to be like, ‘Wow, I really want to go see another store because they’re all so different and unique and match the community.’”

While brands seem sincere in their desire to be a part of the surrounding communities, there’s considerable business strategy behind branded retail, too. Having a physical presence in an outdoor hub like Park City, Big Sky, or Boulder puts a brand front and center with outdoor-minded consumers. And custom retail shops allow brands to “tell their story from A to Z,” said Steve Stout, vice president of retail for brick-and-mortar veteran čóÂáĂ€±ô±ô°ùĂ€±č±đČÔ. Since 2010, čóÂáĂ€±ô±ô°ùĂ€±č±đČÔ has opened 33 North American retail locations.

The sites serve as a vital, in-person touchpoint with the consumer, one that has allowed the Swedish brand to explain its origins, mission, and premium price point, Stout said. “Those questions have to be answered along the way, and you have a much better chance of doing that in your own brand store.”

Brick and mortar has been part of Stio’s strategy from day one. The apparel brand opened its first retail location in 2012 in its hometown of Jackson, Wyoming, to coincide with its website launch and first catalog mailing. “I was a little nervous [that we would be perceived as] just another catalog company out there,” said Stio founder and CEO Steve Sullivan. After all, anyone can set up a website. Opening the retail store was a strategic move to establish legitimacy. “I think it added a lot of weight for a new, direct-to-consumer brand to have that,” Sullivan said.

That proof of legitimacy is a vital step in building trust with consumers—especially when a brand is selling gear that lives literally depend on, Gillette said, referring to the climbing safety equipment Black Diamond is known for. “This really strong trust relationship comes naturally with having human interaction and connection. And what better way to do that than having a brick-and-mortar store that provides community engagement?”

Community members welcome those efforts. “We’ve had such an explosion of interest in the outdoors and so many people going out who are totally new,” said Katie Massey, a Black Diamond fan, avid rock climber, and ten-year Boulder resident who frequently attends local retail events. She’s concerned about overuse of local trails and appreciates the kind of community that builds around retail shops—even branded ones. “It helps spread the word about the right ethics outside,” she said. “[These stores] help people get into the outdoors in a responsible way.”

Some local shops hope for a symbiotic relationship with their branded neighbors. Sally Gilman, owner of Boulder specialty climbing retailer Rock and Resole, says increased awareness of brands like Black Diamond just makes it more likely that her customers will recognize the brand in her store. She also points out that her shop may be better suited to serve local customers compared to the new stores on the tourist hub of Pearl Street. “We have different niches that serve the climbing community,” she said. “Truly, I want to have a spirit of collaboration.”

Shelley Dunbar, owner of the iconic Boulder store Neptune Mountaineering, agreed that retailers on Pearl will cater more to out-of-towners. She added, though, that the brands she carries could have provided her a courtesy heads-up that they’re moving to her neighborhood to allow her to adjust her orders. “It’s better for brands to be up-front and transparent ahead of time so that we can adapt,” Dunbar said.

Cohabitating and, in some cases, collaborating with local shops offer additionalÌę benefits to brick-and-mortar branded stores. But the drawback? It’s expensive. Personnel and real estate cost a pretty penny, especially in prime locations like Pearl Street where lease rates can be so high that stores become more about marketing than moneymaking. In these cases, “if you break even, you’re stoked,” Sullivan said, though he was quick to note Stio’s stores have always ended up in the black.

As for the timing? The pandemic had some impact on Backcountry’s retail strategy,Ìę Purkey said, but it never left higher-ups hesitant. “If anything, because of quarantine, there’s pent-up desire to create epic memories outside, to create human connection,” Purkey said. “We’re probably better positioned to do this, and do it in a way that will be received by our consumer positively, now more than ever.”

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Boulder, Colorado, has long been seen as a hub for outdoor business, and the latest surge of brands and retailers opening brick-and-mortar locations here is further proof that both the town’s outdoor cred and the industry’s allure never wavered during COVID-19. If anything, they’ve grown stronger.

In the last few weeks, Black Diamond Equipment, Stio, and Backcountry have opened stores on Boulder’s famous Pearl Street in hopes of tapping into the city’s natural alignment with the outdoors.

Those brands joined such outdoor stalwarts as Patagonia, The North Face, Fjallraven, Montbell, Norrona, Volcom, and others in downtown Boulder, most of which also call Pearl Street home.

Plenty of other brands have doors elsewhere in town, and the city—along with other towns in Boulder County like Louisville and even nearby Broomfield—is home to the global or North America headquarters for several companies.

Why Boulder and why now? The city is an obvious draw for outdoor enthusiasts, and it’s become even more attractive during COVID as more people look for quick escapes nearby, whether that means scaling routes at the Flatirons, backpacking through Rocky Mountain National Park, or just strolling along Boulder Creek.

To document this recent retail trend, we spoke with brand leaders about why these companies chose Boulder, and what expectations they have for the new retail ventures.

Black Diamond Equipment

People are used to their favorite store closing and becoming a Starbucks, but the outdoor industry is on such a roll right now that one brand—Black Diamond Equipment—found a way to reverse that retail trend.

On July 10, Black Diamond opened the doors to its retail store at 1427 Pearl St., in the site of a former Starbucks. This locale marks Black Diamond’s sixth retail location following Big Sky, Montana; Salt Lake City, Millcreek, and Park City, Utah; and Castle Rock, Colorado.

Black Diamond’s leadership team—including president John Walbrecht and Devin Gillette, director of retail—says the brand expects to continue adding retail locations as part of its omni-channel approach, but that Boulder was the logical next opening based on its proximity to the mountains and its population of BD super fans and newcomers alike.

“Black Diamond’s retail strategy is to focus on opening in key mountain towns, like Boulder, so that we can engage with these rapidly growing mountain communities,” Walbrecht told OBJ. “Boulder is a perfect fit with its rich climbing heritage, vibrant outdoor community, and its pulse on outdoor trends. Black Diamond is a key player in these outdoor markets, making Boulder an ideal match for the brand. It is exciting for us to integrate with Colorado’s expanding Front Range population and build on our roots with this passionate, engaged, and iconic outdoor community which BD already serves.”

Stio

Stio, the Jackson Hole, Wyoming-based mountain lifestyle brand, recently opened its doors at 1505 Pearl St. The Boulder location is the brand’s fourth Mountain Studio retail store, after its Jackson and Teton Village stores in Wyoming and Park City store in Utah.

“We are super stoked to open our next Mountain Studio in one of America’s most vibrant outdoor communities,” said Steve Sullivan, Stio’s founder and CEO. “The combination of an engaged and active local population, energetic college community, and outstanding year-round recreational activities make it an ideal match for us. Having grown up in Colorado, and lived in Boulder for a short time, it has always had a warm place in my heart. I still have a lot of friends down there and know it to be a wonderful community. We are really looking forward to being part of it.”

Backcountry

Though traditionally an e-tailer, Backcountry opened a brick-and-mortar store at 1537 Pearl St., its second store opening this year along with a new door in Park City, Utah. The retailer already had one store adjacent to its fulfillment center in Salt Lake City.

When Backcountry CEO Melanie Cox spoke with OBJ earlier this year for a deeper dive on the retailer’s brick-and-mortar plans, she said, “I think that omni-channel more and more is the most viable approach to retail. You need to meet customers where they want to be met.”

And when asked about the potential for backlash from the retail communities in Park City and Boulder, Cox said, “We’re not just opening up a store. We want to contribute to the communities [we’re moving into]. We’re going to be supporting local nonprofits and establishing partnerships that will give back to the community. Our stores will work hard to reflect the DNA of the communities we’ve selected.”

Don’t forget Denver

Just 30 miles southeast of Boulder along U.S. 36 sits Denver. Not surprisingly, the Mile High City also has seen a rapid rise in outdoor brands moving into town. Last month, for example, Thule, the Swedish rack and accessories brand, opened a brand store in Denver in conjunction with longtime retail partner Rack Attack.

“We’re confident that the Denver store is going to be a great success,” Thule’s new Americas president, Hilary Hartley, told OBJ in a recent Q&A.

Added Thule’s Chris Ritchie, “For us, connecting the Thule brand to consumers that like to explore in the outdoors and live the active lifestyle with their families is important, so choosing a city like Denver was an easy decision for us. The community here in Denver and suburbs throughout the area is full of adventure seekers, athletes and people who love the outdoors, so we couldn’t be more excited to share our award-winning products with them.”

Meanwhile, Portland, Oregon-based boot maker Danner is expanding its footprint with the brand’s seventh retail store and first outside its home turf of the Pacific Northwest.

“As a brand, we thrive outside and craft high-quality footwear ready to tackle Colorado’s diverse terrain, making the Mile High City the perfect location for the newest Danner store,” the company told OBJ in our recent report on the opening.

Both Thule and Danner set up shop at Denver’s Basecamp at Market Station, which has targeted outdoor brands as its chief tenants. It’s in Denver’s LoDo neighborhood between 16th and 17th streets.

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Backcountry has launched an innovative new advocate sponsorship program, Breaking Trail, aimed at supporting and welcoming underrepresented communities. The Breaking Trail program is similar in structure to a traditional athlete sponsorship team, with one key exception: It focuses on outdoor leaders who shine not only in their individual sports, but also as advocates driving meaningful conversations and change in the diversity of the outdoor community.

Inspired by Pattie Gonia, the drag persona of outdoor photographer Wyn Wiley, Backcountry’s Breaking Trail program will offer long-term, sustainable support to these outdoor leaders working to make the outdoors more inclusive.Ìę

“I’m proud of Backcountry for not just talking the talk but also walking the walk, saying they believe diversity in the outdoors matters and following through with action, allyship, and direct financial support for the advocates as they create community for diverse outdoorists,” said Wiley, who will support Backcountry’s Breaking Trail program both as a photographer andÌęan advisor.Ìę

The program, which launches this month, includes not only sponsorship dollars but monthly features that amplify the advocates and their organizations. Advocates will also lead trainings at Backcountry internally, and at the end of the year, Backcountry plans to fly them all to Park City for a community engagement summit and storytelling event.Ìę

The program’s class of sponsored athletes will include seven outdoor trailblazers: JosĂ© GonzalĂ©z,Ìędiversity educator, athlete, and founder of Latino Outdoor;ÌęRon Griswell,Ìęadvocate, educator, and founder of HBCUs șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű;ÌęJuju Milay,Ìęathlete and founder of Colour the Trails;ÌęEliot JacksonÌęMTB athlete, presenter, and co-founder of Grow Cycling Foundation;ÌęJaylyn Gough, photographer and founder of Native Women’s Wilderness;ÌęCali Wolf,ÌęER nurse and coordinating director of Native Women’s Wilderness; and Kareemah Batts,Ìędiversity advocate, cancer survivor, and founder of Adaptive Climb Group.

“This program should serve as a blueprint for companies who wish to approach marginalized communities that they don’t directly belong to,” said Batts. “They let us lead the campaign every step of the way. I had never experienced anything like that before. I have good expectations about this partnership—this is just the beginning.”

How Backcountry Chose Its Athlete Ambassadors

Colleen O’Neill, senior marketing manager at Backcountry, told OBJ this week that the inaugural class of athlete-ambassadors is the first of many to come.

“This is a long-term commitment that we will be developing for years,” she said. “Our initial thought was to include 12 advocates, but we realized we wouldn’t be able to tell everyone’s story in a meaningful way, so we’re starting with seven.”

Backcountry selected the athletes based on several criteria, but two of the most important, O’Neill says, were existing relationships and nonprofit involvement. The company wanted to kick the program off by working with advocates it had supported in the past; it also made sure that each of those advocates was involved with some kind of nonprofit organization, so that Backcountry could support those organizations with the ambassadors’ help.

As for coming classes, O’Neill says the company welcomes input from anyone in the outdoor community as to who should be involved.

“This is a two-way street,” she said. “We’re open to any and all advice for our next advocates. This is a community effort and we’re open to any guidance our community can give us.”

For the makeup of future classes, O’Neill says that including members of the AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) community is “100 percent on Backcountry’s radar.”

“We know that we need to be more inclusive that space,” O’Neill said, “and we’re excited to expand in that direction.”

Sunn Kim, a digital content producer for Backcountry who worked with Wiley to photograph the inaugural class of athlete-ambassadors, says he felt a sense of deep purpose assisting in the effort to amplify these seven voices.

“When I was growing up, I struggled with my identity in the outdoors as second-generation Korean American,” Kim said. “This [photoshoot] was the first time I was surrounded by people who felt the same kind of restrains I’ve always felt in the outdoors. As a creative, I feels it’s my responsibility to give these people a voice.”

Paul Tew, senior creative director at Backcountry, added that this project is meant to be a conversation, not a marketing campaign.

“This is more than just imagery—this is a storytelling effort,” Tew said. “We’re going to be doing interviews with every ambassador because we feel it’s just as important to hear peoples’ voices as it is to see their images. Those interviews will be included in the monthly spotlights for each advocate.”

Backcountry’s Larger Commitment to Diversity

This new initiative is not the first effort Backcountry has made to improve diversity in outdoor recreation. The company is also one of 175 organizations that have signed the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge, founded by Teresa Baker and Chris Perkins in 2019. The Pledge is a commitment to action that moves the outdoor industry toward authentic inclusion.

The spectrum of how companies have interpreted that pledge—and how much success they’ve seen in making progress toward their goals—varies widely. Nonetheless, Baker sees tangible progress in the making.

“I think brands are finally coming around to the understanding that equitable representation in marketing matters,” she said. “What I really like about the campaign is that everyone is wearing their own style. Backcountry didn’t make it a necessity to have everyone styled in their line of clothing.”

Through the Breaking Trail program, Backcountry hopes to become a more inclusive organization while at the same time amplifying the message of its new leaders—spreading the message of inclusivity as widely as possible throughout the industry.

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In an effort to grow further into the brick-and-mortar retail market, Backcountry, the outdoor gear brand and digital marketplace, announced plans this week to open two new storefronts in Park City, Utah, and Boulder, Colorado. Both will open in May, company leaders say.

The idea for the new stores, Backcountry CEO Melanie Cox told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal today, came from an examination of sales numbers at the company’s brick-and-mortar shop in West Valley City, Utah—currently the brand’s sole location.

“I took a look at the sales in that store and that was almost all I needed to know about the potential for brick-and-mortar retail for Backcountry,” Cox said. Given the shop’s location—attached to the company’s fulfillment center in the middle of an industrial park—there’s no reason to believe it would perform as well as it does, Cox explained. But the numbers don’t lie.

“We took that information and said, ‘This is an opportunity standing right in front of us,'” Cox said.

Designing a New Experiment

The first store Backcountry plans to open, in Park City, will sit right below the company headquarters, in the same building. The proximity to company leadership will allow Backcountry to use the new space as a “lab to tweak and grow as brick-and-mortar retailers,” Cox said, while also serving a community the company knows well. The Boulder store will occupy a smaller space on Pearl Street, a popular pedestrian mall.

Both stores will be staffed by members of Backcountry’s Gearheads team, a group of customer service experts comprised of “individuals who live and breathe the outdoors, including former pro athletes, gear junkies, 100-day-a-year skiers, and all-around industry gurus.”

Chris Purkey, Backcountry’s senior vice president of customer experience and manager of the Gearheads program, says the company’s focus will be “to staff the stores [with enough people] so that a customer always has access to a Gearhead.”

“At a time when a lot of other retailers are trying to cut their costs [in the customer service department], we’re investing in ours,” Cox said, noting that Backcountry will recruit and train retail staff members according to the same process it uses for its Gearheads team.

Purkey says training new staff for in-person customer service won’t be radically different from the process Backcountry already uses for its online service team.

“The type of individual we attract as a brand is a very charismatic, approachable person with deep outdoor expertise,” Purkey said. “We’ll have the same recruiting focus for people to staff our stores.”

As for sales, the new locations are intended to capitalize on the proven strength of an omni-channel strategy for retailers with a large digital operation like Backcountry.

“I think that omni-channel more and more is the most viable approach to retail,” Cox said. “You need to meet customers where they want to be met.”

For Backcountry, that means using these new stores to round out an online/offline model that, ideally, makes shopping in person as seamless as shopping online. If one of the new stores doesn’t have a product in stock, customers won’t have to wait for the shop to order it in. The new locations will offerÌęfree two-day delivery for orders over $50 to anywhere in the country, and same-day delivery in some areas.

A New Company Direction

The move comes at an interesting time for Backcountry. Just over a year has passed since the company’sÌęnotorious trademark fiasco, when the brand lost the trust and goodwill of many outdoor industry consumers. Since then,ÌęBackcountry has invested significantlyÌęin making amends with those it wronged, but it’s likely that this new move will reawaken some of the skepticism that plagued the company in late 2019.

When asked about the potential for backlash from the retail communities in Park City and Boulder, Cox said, “We’re not just opening up a store. We want to contribute to the communities [we’re moving into]. We’re going to be supporting local nonprofits and establishing partnerships that will give back to the community. Our stores will work hard to reflect the DNA of the communities we’ve selected.”

The main idea, Cox says, is that Backcountry believes it can join the retail market in Park City, Boulder, and potentially elsewhere in a way that’s new and complimentary.

“Park City, where we’ll start, is a small community and we know the people who have been around,” said Cox. “We wouldn’t be doing this if we didn’t think we could show up in a way that’s different.”

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Not only is Backcountry apologizing to smaller brands impacted by its trademark litigation, the online retailer has formed partnerships with at least three so far as part of making reparations with consumers and the outdoor community.

On Monday night, Wild Barn Coffee—formerly Backcountry Nitro—became the third company to forgive them,Ìęannouncing that they’ll be serving their canned cold-brew coffee at Backcountry’s Stoke Series events and to the brand’s Salt Lake City Gearhead employees. The retailer also promised to help them expand distribution into new key markets.

“We know this issue has caused chaos in the outdoor community. It struck an emotional nerve, as it should,” wrote Wild Barn Coffee owners Alyssa Evans and Jenny Verrochi on Instagram.

“We understand how you feel,” they continued. “It’s been a whirlwind! But we think it’s really powerful for a company to step up, apologize (the CEO of @backcountry flew out to meet us face to face, as he is with the other small businesses he hurt) and help us grow in a way which would take tremendous time otherwise. Together, with positive momentum, all these small businesses have a platform to spread their wings. At the end of the day, we’re all just humans trying to find connection! Onward and outside!”

In early November, consumers learned through the Wintry Mix podcast and a Colorado Sun story that Backcountry had been filing petitions and lawsuits against smaller brands over their use of the word “backcountry”—a word that’s used by so many in the outdoor community. The public outcry was strong, with thousands of consumers boycotting the brand and some peeling their goat stickers off their cars and water bottles.

CEO Jonathan Nielsen first apologized through șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal and a statement published on its website. He then fired the trademark legal firm and started personal outreach to rebuild Backcountry’s reputation in the outdoor community.

Backcountry over the weekend announced on Twitter that it has partnered with Backcountry Babes, a women-focused avalanche education and leadership nonprofit, and its owner Emily Hargraves to help grow her business and provide multi-year scholarships.

The new program aims to enable five aspiring Backcountry Babes instructors to work through The American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) Instructor Qualifications and five more working toward American Mountain Guide Association Ski Guide Certification, according to Backcountry.

“We are committed to making a positive impact in the outdoor community,” the online retailer wrote on Twitter. “This is just the beginning.”

Marquette Backcountry Skis, manufactured by Snapperhead Inventions, was the first brand to team up with the online retailer. Owner David Ollila wrote on Facebook that he will be advising Backcountry on community engagement and distributing his skis on the retailer’s website. He said that while trust in Backcountry has been lost, he believes they learned their lesson and he’s willing to give them a chance.

“I believe this is a positive for all of us within the outdoor community,” Ollila wrote. “There’s an opportunity for Backcountry to move forward, grow and to re-connect on a deeper level with its customers.”

It’s unclear just how many companies Backcountry will partner with, but Nielsen previously told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal he would be reaching out to everyone who had been impacted.

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Backcountry CEO Jonathan Nielsen says he received an online threat from someone last week after he released a public letter of apology regarding the company’s trademark-enforcement strategy.

The Park Record reported that the online retailer’s general counsel reported the threat to law enforcement on November 7 and the executive temporarily relocated his family.

The message over Instagram read, “I know where you live a nice little place in (Summit County), and you will suffer dire consequences,” according to the Park City newspaper.

Backcountry has offices in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Summit County Sheriff’s OfficeÌęadded Nielsen’s home and the company’s corporate headquarters to its property watch list, the Record reported.

The company and Nielsen have received major criticism over filing petitions and lawsuits against smaller businesses for using the word “backcountry.” Thousands of people have expressed outrage on social media and through direct messages to the brand.

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Circulating a letter of apology was the first step. Now, Backcountry CEO Jonathan Nielsen said he is making personal calls and visits to repair relationships with companies hurt in the online retailer’s trademark litigation over use of the word “backcountry.”

Nielsen confirmed with șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business News on Friday afternoon that he “parted ways” with IPLA Trademark Law, the trademark-only law firm that represented Backcountry, and put other lawyers on the “sidelines.” He also says Backcountry dropped all outstanding litigation, which was the one case with Marquette Backcountry Ski.

“I decided we need to go back to roots and reach out,” Nielsen said. “I’m going to reach out to everyone we’ve talked to and see where it takes us. I want to apologize and I want them to know Backcountry on a more personal level.”

Of the way Backcountry went about trying to protect the brand through trademarks, Nielsen said, “We messed this one up in our approach and we didn’t do it the right way.”

He said he knows this doesn’t make everything right; he said he has a lot of work to do.

HisÌęstatement of apology, released first through șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal on Wednesday, fueled the outdoor community’s fiery critique even more. Many say it wasn’t even close enough to repay its two years of sending cease-and-desist orders and lawsuits to other businesses—seemingly non-competitors, nonprofits, and small businesses who say they didn’t have the funds to fight back. Numerous businesses say they felt forced to rebrand.

“I had the five-figure bill to my trademark lawyer, I had to hang these signs on the building, I had to rewrite my entire company manual and scrub the word ‘backcountry’ from it, and I had to design a completely new website,” said Tyson Stellrecht, owner of Boise Gear Collective (formerly Backcountry Pursuit) who was hit with legal action from Backcountry in 2017. “There were tons of other things, like throwing away $1,000 in stickers I had with the Backcountry Pursuit name on them. It cost me a lot of money to rebrand.” At the time, he was a second-hand gear shop. “In a way, I fed their business. People brought me their old gear to sell so they could buy new stuff.”

Stellrecht is now waiting for his call from Nielsen.

“I think about my relationships I have with the competitors around me in town,” Stellrecht said. “We’ve all carved out our own niche in this industry to figure out how we can make money, but it’s not quite the cutthroat industry some others are where you try and bury your competition.”

Nielsen’s first conversation as part of his apology tour was with David Ollila, founder of Snapperhead Inventions, the manufacturer of the Marquette snowshoe-ski hybrid. Ollila and two others created a GoFundMe campaign to fight back and raised nearly $7,000 in four days. The fundraiser is currently disabled and not accepting new donations.

Nielsen said he and Ollila have a lot in common, and they found a way to partner together by bringing Marquette Backcountry Skis onto the platform and giving Ollila an advisory role in planning out next steps. Ollila confirmed that the conversation was positive and productive. “We all want the same thing,” he said in a message.

“Turns out when you sit down and talk, good things happen,” Nielsen said.

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As controversy swirls and customer outrage mounts around how Backcountry is defending its trademark, the Utah-based online retailer has potentially lost thousands of customers in its fight for the use of a single word that the outdoor industry loves to use: “backcountry.”

The outdoor community has been waiting for answers, and until today, Backcountry CEO Jonathan Nielsen has remained quiet. In his first interview since the public outcry, Nielsen told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal that the company was not trying to “expunge backcountry from everyone’s lexicon, shut down entire organizations, or exclusively own the word.”

“I understand that people are disappointed in us and feel let down by us. I take that very seriously,” said Nielsen. “What’s hard is how we’re being portrayed in the market. It’s tough to tell our story because we have different confidentiality agreements, but what I will tell you is what’s being said is not reflective of how we behave in the market, how we treat partners, and how we treat people. We were never holistically trying to own the term ‘backcountry.'”

It’s true that over the last two years, Backcountry (through lawyers) has filed petitions for cancellations of trademarks against dozens of businesses using the term “backcountry” and followed up at least three cases with lawsuits, public documents through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) reveal.

The businesses, products, and trademarks Backcountry disputed include American Backcountry, Backcountry Babes, Marquette Backcountry Skis, Backcountry Denim Co., Backcountry Nitro, Cripple Creek Backcountry, and Backcountry Discovery Routes, to name a few.

As far as șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal knows, businesses with trademarks that haven’t faced legal action from Backcountry include Backcountry Access, Backcountry Magazine, Backcountry North, Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, Denali Backcountry Lodge, among others.

It’s true that because of Backcountry’s defense, a number of small businesses and even a few nonprofits changed their names and halted their businesses, paid lawyers and spent hours going over trademark law, and endured distress from being involved in a legal battle with a prominent online retailer.

It’s true that small business owners—viewed by the public as non-competitors—have said they felt threatened, bullied, and forced into certain results by Backcountry and its legal counsel. (Nielsen denies that legal counsel has made any threats or shown any signs of misconduct.)

It’s also true that Nielsen never saw this backlash coming—being vilified for doing something other companies have been doing for years by protecting trademarks. The issue has resulted in Gearheads (Backcountry’s signature team of expert personalized shoppers)Ìębeing inundated with personal attacks.

In a prepared statement, Backcountry addressed a number of issues and announced its decision to drop a pending lawsuit against Marquette Backcountry Skis,Ìęa snowshoe-ski hybrid created by David Ollila.

Nielsen’s letter in full: We have heard your feedback and concerns, and understand we fumbled in how we pursued trademark claims recently. We made a mistake.

In an attempt to protect the brand we have been building for nearly 25 years, we took certain actions that we now recognize were not consistent with our values, and we truly apologize.

It’s important to note that we tried to resolve these trademark situations amicably and respectfully, and we only took legal action as a last resort. That said, we know we mishandled this, and we are withdrawing the Marquette Backcountry action. We will also reexamine our broader approach to trademarks to ensure we are treating others in a way that is consistent with the culture and values envisioned by our founders and embraced by our community.

We only want what’s best for the whole community and we want every person and business in it to thrive. Backcountry has never been interested in owning the word “backcountry” or completely preventing anyone else from using it. But we clearly misjudged the impact of our actions.

We understand that this step we’ve taken may not be enough for some of you. The hope is that we can ultimately win back your trust, even if it takes time. We are grateful to be a part of your lives, providing you with great gear for your outdoor adventures, and all we want is to go back to doing what we do best. We intend to learn from this and become a better company.

A History of Backcountry and Its Trademark

Since its founding in 1996 by two ski bums, Jim Holland and John Bresee, who died in June, Backcountry has changed hands twice. In 2015, John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp sold it to TSG Consumer Partners, a private-equity firm that also owns CorePower Yoga, Planet Fitness, Nuun, and a number of health, wellness, and beauty brands. Backcountry’s other sites include Steep & Cheap, Competitive Cyclist, Motosport.com, and it’s European label, Bergfreunde.de.

In 2007, Backcountry secured its first registration of a service mark, the USPTO shows. In 2017 and 2018, San Diego-based attorney John Kim (on behalf of Backcountry) expanded the service mark’s scopeÌęand the various trademarksÌęby listing hundreds of types of outdoor gear, from heart rate monitors to mountaineering gear. In between those two filings, Nielsen became CEO in 2015 after serving in other roles since 2010.

“Our trademark strategy is directly related to the backcountry brand we want to build and the rights we need to build that,” Nielsen said. Those rights include making and selling apparel for the outdoors and active lifestyles, along with hundreds of types of gear. “But we will definitely rethink our strategy.”

According to Backcountry’s about page, “Our roots were humble, and we’ve grown since then, but our vision is still clear: to provide the best outdoor gear—and to be the best at doing it.”

In March 2018, Backcountry announced it was launching its own private label, sticking its goat logo to shirts, jackets, ski apparel and skis, tents and sleeping bags, and more outdoor gear. It collaborated with brands like Burton and Flylow, and expanded this year to include climbing, mountain biking, winter sports, and travel and lifestyle collections.

“We’re proud of what we built,” Nielsen said. “Sometimes we come across organizations using our brand to market their products and services that are really similar to ours. There are a ton of different categories. We were only ever seeking specific and relevant rights for specific uses of the term.”

The Outdoor Industry Reacts to Backcountry’s Trademark Protection Tactics

There’s no doubt that protecting a trademark is important for business. It’s also complex. Patagonia did it earlier this year by suing Anheuser-Busch for naming a beer “Patagonia Cerveza” and packaging it in cans with the silhouette of a mountain—closely resembling Patagonia’s logo. Anheuser-Busch tried to get the case dismissed, but a U.S. district judge denied the motion on September 3. Yeti has done it. The North Face has done it too. And so have many others.

“This would seem to me to be business as usual,” said Mike Rounds, head of the Intellectual Property Department at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schrek, a 50-year-old law firm with offices in Reno, Denver, and other cities. “Companies that have trademarks that want to ensure they have the best and broadest trademark possible are aggressive at protecting their marks.”

Rounds said that the USPTO decides if someone can register for a federal trademark and the courts decide whether or not there’s infringement. That’s how Backcountry got its mark in 2007. And it’s how businesses like Apple, McDonald’s, Ford, and other big names have kept theirs. Now the battle is in the courts over the strength and seniority of Backcountry’s mark, whether it’s too descriptive, who has more recognition, and who’s infringing upon who.

But what’s different in this fight is that it isn’t with other big corporations or against outright defamation. Many consumers and outdoor industry members are focusing on the fact that Backcountry appears to be targeting the little guys, the companies who innovate and inspire the outdoor industry. It seems more like David vs. Goliath to them.

“This is a bullshit private equity move, masters of the universe, trying to control the world,” said Rich Hill, president of Grassroots Outdoor Alliance. “We have retailers that have had ‘backcountry’ in their name for the last 40 years. To my knowledge, none of them have been contacted. The whole Backcountry organization needs to tell the investment group that this will damage their reputation if they continue to pursue this.”

Indeed, it’s already happening. More than 11,000 people have joined the Facebook group Boycott BackcountryDOTcom. A handful of members changed their profile pictures to Backcountry’s all-white, big-horned goat logo with a red slash through it. Others have taken videos of them scraping their goat stickers off gear. The hashtags #boycottbackcountry and #backcountryboycott are gaining more and more posts. Another thread on the Mountain Project forum is titled “Backcountry is not playing nice.”ÌęOllila and two others even created a GoFundMe to raise legal fees to fight the business. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Business Journal reached out to Ollila for comment, but has not immediately heard back.

“If you’re anybody in the market that’s got the name backcountry associated with your brand or your product or your service, I’d be on high alert right now because there’s someone out there that wants to take it from you,” Ollila, founder of Snapperhead Inventions, the manufacturer of the Marquette skis, recently said on the Wintry Mix podcast.

Justin Reiter, an Olympic snowboarder, says he’s done with Backcountry—and he’s only one out of thousands of customers with impassioned words. “They have the façade of being outdoorsy, but they’re not,” Reiter said. “They’re a profit-driven, e-commerce superstore. I think if you just scrape off the façade, it’s no different than a Walmart, a Costco, a Target. It’s trying to provide a good deal and capture market share. But it’s utilizing a brand to try and fool everyone.”

Small Companies Feel Threatened and Relinquish Their Names to Backcountry

Jordan Phillips was on the receiving end of legal filings in 2017. The rollout of Backcountry’s first namesake collection in 2018 was not long after Phillips, a former Gregory Packs and Levi’s executive, registered a federal goods trademark for Backcountry Denim Co., an active jeans company with a “plant, remove, improve” purpose. Within weeks, he received a petition for cancellation of his trademark registration from Backcountry. And when the USPTO denied Backcountry’s request, the online retailer filed a lawsuit against Phillips in February 2019 in California’s U.S. District Court. They settled in August 2019 under undisclosed terms.

“Big companies that go after the small guys do that because they know they can bury them in legal costs and find loopholes and whatnot,” Phillips said. He also said, “My feeling is that nobody should have the right to the term ‘backcountry.’”

It’s like trademarking the words “outdoor” or “mountain,” he said. In a February 2018 response, Phillips argued that the word is descriptive, and thus, cannot be trademarked alone. “Backcountry is a term used in dozens of brands and products in the outdoor retail sector,” he wrote. “…The Petition for Cancelation (sic) is truly a tactic to test the strength of a large and well-funded corporation to intimidate a small family company.”

Phillips says he poured hundreds of hours into teaching himself trademark law and fighting the case for more than two years, but he can’t say how it ended due to confidentiality terms. He renamed his company BDCo. for now and he’s planning a soft launch of 15 American-made products for next spring. “These guys pulled the rug out from under me when it was day two. I had to catch my breath for a couple months.”

He’s not alone. Backcountry has lodged petitions for cancellations of marks against at least 13 companies, out of 316 marks including the word “backcountry” and 44 owners listed on the trademark database justia.com.ÌęIn numerous cases, Backcountry’s attorneys point out that their client’s mark came first, arguing that if other companies get to keep their mark, the retailer “believes that it will be damaged by the continued registration of the above-referenced registration.”

Some cases are still pending, some have been abandoned after decisions between the parties, and some companies’ marks have been cancelled. In at least one case, Backcountry withdrew its petition for cancellation of a trademark. And as of Wednesday, the retailer dropped the lawsuit against Ollila’s company.

Without funds for a legal fight, Jenny Verrochi said she felt forced into changing her Boulder based canned coffee company’s name from Backcountry Nitro to Wild Barn Coffee. When she opened her email on August 30, 2019, she felt sick. Sitting unread in her inbox was a 7-page document from an attorney for Backcountry asking her to immediately stop using the word “backcountry” even though she had a trademark. If she didn’t, the giant online retailer’s legal team says it would take further action. “Please be aware that my client will not be inclined to resolve this matter amicably if it is forced to oppose your application or formally litigate the matter,” attorney Ben White wrote to her on behalf of Backcountry.

After months of stress and a few thousand dollars spent on lawyer fees and redesigns, Verrochi surrendered. She still hasn’t signed Backcountry’s cease-and-desist order; she’s hoping the name change will be enough for them to drop the case.

“I used to buy from them,” said Verrochi, an avid snowboarder and outdoor enthusiast. “It’s just strange because the outdoor community is so close-knit and I like to think everyone supports each other. It’s heartbreaking and I feel stomped on and threatened for sure.”

Backcountry Discovery Routes, a Seattle nonprofit providing GPS maps for off-road motorcyclists, faces a petition for cancellation. Backcountry’s attorneys argued in letters that the nonprofit’s mark is “confusingly similar to Petitioner’s Backcountry Marks in both appearance and commercial impression” and that Backcountry “is the dominant portion of Registrant’s Mark since consumers are generally more inclined to focus or remember the first word in a multi-word mark.”

The nonprofit’s attorney, John Branch, responded with his own petition to cancel Backcountry’s trademarks. “I was really surprised they singled us out,” Branch said. His client has used the name for ten years and has 30,000 members. “A nonprofit doesn’t really want to get in an argument with a for-profit company.”

Another nonprofit, Backcountry Babes, a women-focused avalanche safety clinic is operated by Constellation Outdoor Education, faced cancellation of its trademark in January 2019. A representative declined to talk for the story; documents in the case from January 2019 are sealed, but their mark is still registered. A source close to the case said Backcountry Babe’s trademark included rights to apparel in the U.S. and it blocked the retailer from continuing to make apparel.

Reclaiming the Backcountry

As of midday Wednesday, the GoFundMe “Legal Defense to Fight Backcountry.com” had raised more than $6,000. The campaign’s introduction, in part, reads, “‘Backcountry’ was common vernacular long before Backcountry.com appropriated it and began sueing those who use the term to describe their products, organizations and movements. This is abusive and goes against all the ethics and standards of the outdoor community.”

Both the fundraiser and the boycott were created to show Backcountry that the outdoor community doesn’t tolerate “corporate bullies.” They’re also reinforcing the message that no one owns the backcountry.

“If they wrote a public apology and said we really lost our way, we’re going to step back and take all these lawsuits back and everyone’s welcome to use [the word], and all the money we were spending on legal fees, we’re going to donate to the backcountry, then I’ll say hey, get it,” Reiter said. “But even if they did, honestly, those guys are dead to me.”

Nielsen hopes people will consider Backcountry’s side of the story too. “We are fundamentally the same Backcountry our customers have loved for years,” he said.

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