A recent trip to visit our Park City Ambassador elicited much conversation that we hear over and over and over again. We heard about how the town ain’t like it used to be. How there was never anything but farms and open land beyond the white barn. Now there is everything from Whole Foods and Back Country corporate headquarters to homes and more homes beyond the barn. We talked about going skiing the next day and he said only if I signed an NDA about where to find good snow. And a separate NDA for where to park. This was in late April and he was worried about me spilling the beans on where to find the good stuff (the runs between the runs –he has sussed out all the good lines through the trees) and where to park---seemingly a huge issue on holidays and weekends but he was showing signs of parking PTSD on the last week of April on a Wednesday.
However Mr. H touched a sensitive nerve for any ‘local’. We all have our little local tricks to make living in a tourist community more pleasurable. These little tricks were always important, but let’s face it; they were less important decades ago than today. With the advent of Icon and Epic passes skier days are at an all time high. I am not making this up, total skier days in the 21-22 season hit 61 million up 3.5% from the previous record set in the 2010-11 season. I skied both those season and what characterized the 21-22 season was shit snow and high prices. My man Mr. H and all the other UT skiers had about 90% less snow during the January -mid February period than average. Tahoe got slammed over Christmas and New Years and then no snow for 6 weeks plus 55 degree temps. Record skier days paired with crap snow puts a huge premium on all those local tricks.
Which brings me to gravirax. While it’s my business to sell ski racks to any and all, it’s really designed by locals for locals. If you live in Denver and ski Steamboat two weekends and Breck one week we won’t say no to your order. It will get your skis safely to the hill, and you can enjoy ease of loading and unloading etc. And yes, we are designing a cover to help with those long commutes and provide a more finished system to secure your skis from the local ski bum addict who might steal your new DPS skis and trade em for some coke and oxy.
Where Gravirax shines is locals. When skiing is part of your day, not your whole day. Those of us who dream of getting in 100 days but somehow between work, a random injury and cruddy snow “only” log 75. We ski our local mountain, and your mountain and maybe Japan and Europe too. And we might also uphill here and there and ohhh yea sometimes over there (and we won’t ever tell you where that is). We got kids who ski, some race, some learn to ski and some ski with lots of friends. We have multiple sets of skis and boots ---and local secret we love our AT gear when we are watching our kids race or we are working the course. The canting on those AT boots is soooooo much better than standing around in stiff downhill boots all day. You are the locals. And Gravirax is for you. Super durable---it only has one moving part which can be easily maintained. Saving 5 minutes loading and unloading doesn’t sound like much but over 75 ski days its 6+ hours. And those extra minutes in the morning might be the ticket to more fresh POW or a bit more sleep. Picking up the kids and having them load their skis in seconds is awesome---shit I should talk to Vail and Aspen Ski Co about having dedicate Gravirax pick up lanes because they will move like TSA pre check lines at the airport. Locals we got your back with our hitch ski rack. I won’t try to tell you its perfect because nothing is, but it will make getting your turns in wherever and whenever you do it a bit more pleasurable, and you don’t need to sign an NDA to make it happen. Now I gotta review what Mr. H had me sign, I fear I might have agreed to pay for one of his kids weddings in exchange for a parking spot at Solitude.
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