Thanks, Bill!

Bill Crouse is about my size, 5’10”, in a lot better physical shape than I am (not that I’m in bad shape), and one heck of a likable guy. Without him, you wouldn’t be reading this. We also wouldn’t have both our brick and mortar—or, I should say, Victorian wood—The North Face store here in Breckenridge, Colorado and our breckgear.com online store.

If you notice in the picture, Bill’s standing on a mountain top, holding one of our The North Face Breckenridge staff shirts. If he looks a little bundled up, that’s because he’s not just standing on any mountaintop. That’s the top of Mount Everest, and he was kind enough to take one of our staff shirts to the top. If you ever get to visit us in Breck, we have more pictures of Bill’s expedition and we have the shirt. In fact, we’ll probably put more pictures of Bill’s trip here in the future.

Bill’s been to the top of Everest, I believe, around 6 times out of 8 tries and has helped guide most of these expeditions. If you ever watch the Discovery Channel Everest Expeditions, you’ll probably see Bill doing his thing as a one of the guides Be sure to check your local Discovery Channel listings; it’s pretty cool.

It was almost like climbing Everest to get our store open: A long process that started about 8 years ago, when Bill Crouse was the rep for The North Face.

For three years running, I would go in to The North Face display room at the Outdoor Retailer show in Utah to try to get The North Face to allow us to sell their product.
Bill was always friendly, always remembered me and always said no. He said they had too much coverage in our area.

Not exactly sure what the magic word was on the third try, but it was the charm and the rest for us is history. We’re some of those lucky people who get to live the life we love. Of course we made this happen—but not without a yes from Bill. Thanks Bill!

I guess because of our perseverance, and Bill’s faith in us, we’re here 5 years later with arguably the best looking The North Face store in the West at 9,600 feet, and a great online store to match.

So welcome to our new blog! Sure, we'll plug our store: We're proud of it and we believe in our product. But we also want to share with you what it's like to live and work on Main Street, Breckenridge, Colorado, how our gear works, how to make it work for you, and just generally cool stuff about skiing, mountaineering, climbing, boarding, or whatever you choose to do. Even if it's not about our products. As long as you get out there, we want to hear about it!

You'll get to "meet" our staff, too, here. Steve, Susan, Pete, Gregg, Andy, Kelly, Bill, Peter, Katie, Timmay, Tammy and a host of others will all show their faces, answer questions, and maybe let you in on that secret powder stash or what's really hot on the mountain. Until next time…….. Steve