Man, I Got To Get Out West and Ski Some Powder
Pat Spence has been a BlackStrap ambassador for a number of years now. He is from Allentown, Pennsylvania, but is currently based out of Salt Lake City, Utah.
Pat is a professional backcountry skier. He has been skiing since he was three years old, so a total of 27 years now. He grew up skiing at Blue Mountain and Dough Mountain resort in Pennsylvania. Pat kind of just ended up in Salt Lake, he was living in Colorado and moved to Utah not really knowing anybody, and now he has been there for 11 years. It's been great for him and is skiing career.
Growing up, Pat has been skiing since three years old, that moment on he was like, "man, I kind of want to do this". His mom bought him a ski movie for Christmas and he watched that film over and over and over. He was like, "man, I got to get out west and ski some powder, looks awesome".
Pat had a great time touring the Northwest at Mount Baker, Crystal Mountain, and had some good skiing at Mount Bachelor in Bend, OR. He told us in his interview that "Accessing the backcountry definitely takes some knowledge and some safety skills. You get all the necessary gear, you're a great skier or rider and take an avalanche class so you can make the right decisions in the backcountry and if something bad does happen you know you have the skills that you need to save of somebody's life".
Pat came to Bend, Oregon to link up with the BlackStrap crew and took a quick tour of the offices and warehouse to see the production, the quality control, and kind of just how everything works around BlackStrap. He was just amazed to see how dialed it is.
Pat loves skiing in The Hood balaclava most days, and then he loves the Summit hooded baselayer. He said, "It's an extra layer you can pull up over your head if you get a little cold and you can always drop that hood down on the warmer days."
We took Pat out to Broken Top for some backcountry goodness, which was awesome for him to explore some new terrain. Snow wasn't the greatest but was cool for him to check out the area and now he wants come back, hopefully mid winter or early spring when the central cascades still got some powder and to rip some big lines.
