Stayin' Alive
Adventure-lovers stoke a demand for survival gear.
Forget those designated trails--back-country terrain is where
real sports enthusiasts are trekking. And with natural occurrences
such as avalanches, hail storms and bear attacks common on these
untrodden paths, products and services geared toward safety and
survival are in great demand. Safety courses, first-aid kits and
avalanche safety equipment prove attractive to the
"out-of-bounds" skiers, riders and climbers of the
world.
Such demand has also enticed entrepreneurs to turn their rough
drafts into realities. For instance, David Weiss, 60, a project
director for Salinas, California's Monterey Bay Regional
Partnership, a federally funded group providing work experience for
students, designed and markets the Sierra Survival Scarf for Santa
Cruz, California-based Pacific Venture Outdoor Products. The scarf
lists life-saving information such as weather patterns and
water-procurement techniques directly on the cloth. And Tom
Crowley, 62, a psychiatry professor at the University of Colorado
in Denver and a back-country skier, invented the AvaLung,
distributed by Salt Lake City's Black Diamond Equipment Ltd., a
vest equipped with a filtration device that draws fresh air
directly from suffocating avalanche-caused snowpacks. "My
state has the [country's] highest mortality rate from
avalanches," says Crowley. "All of us here are concerned
about it, so I [thought] of a way to help reduce the
risk."
Just keep in mind, these items won't pre-vent disasters--in
fact, any outdoor adventurer should know that the most important
thing to bring on a back-country enterprise is common sense.
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