And we’re off! Blister Summit 2023 kicked off this past Sunday evening, with attendees, vendors, athletes, designers, and more all meeting up in Elevation Hotel at Mount Crested Butte, Colorado.
We started with our evening welcome session, with refreshments provided by New Image Brewing, Whistlepig, and Athletic Brewing, and followed that up with our first panel session. This one focused on how designers and athletes in the outdoor industry go about testing, evaluating, and reviewing gear. We got to hear from Andrew Couperthwait (HEAD), Cyrus Schenck (Renoun), and Chris Davenport (Peak Skis).
The next morning, we got right into gear testing, with attendees trying products from 4FRNT, Atomic, Blizzard, Dalbello, Deuter, Deviation Works (skis & snowboards), DPS, Dynafit (ski & boots), Dynastar, Faction, Fischer, Flylow, Folsom, HEAD, Icelantic, K2 (skis & boots), Line, Majesty, Meier, Moment, Nordica, Ortovox, Peak Skis, Pomoca, Renoun, Rossignol (skis & snowboards), Salomon, Scott, Stockli, Volkl, Wagner, WNDR Alpine (skis & snowboards), Zipfit, and many more.
The day started fully bluebird, but in what’s becoming a theme with the Blister Summit, a storm soon rolled in, and it looks like the snow will continue to stack up over the coming days. In addition to plenty of group ski meetups at Crested Butte Mountain Resort, we also had groups head out into the Crested Butte backcountry with Irwin Guides.
After many laps and many ski / board swaps throughout the day, we all met back up in Elevation for nightly apres, presented by Compeed, followed by our next two panel sessions. We started with a discussion about not only ski design, but also the intricacies of ski manufacturing. We heard from Thomas Laakso (DPS), Janusz Borowiec (Majesty), Ted Eynon (Meier Skis), and Mike McCabe (Folsom), and heard all about the minute details that go into ski production, their thoughts on where ski construction might go in the future, and more.
Following that, we had our first Athlete Panel, this time with Eric ‘Hoji’ Hjorleifson, Forest Shearer, McKenna Peterson, and Rory Bushfield. This conversation was a blast, with some unreal stories shared from these four skiers and snowboarders’ long and varied careers.
We’re now prepping for another long day of gear demos, yoga, backcountry tours, panel sessions, and more. Stay tuned to our social channels and website for updates, and keep an eye out in the weeks to come for a whole bunch of videos from Blister Summit 2023 on our YouTube channel.
Flash review of the 196 Moment Wildcat plssssssssssss
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