In 2019 Park City-based outdoor retailer Backcountry sued a slew of companies that trademarked the word “backcountry.”
One of the small businesses served was Marquette Backcountry Skis. Their product, developed by a Michigan entrepreneur, is a unique, wide ski with fish-scale bases made of blow-molded plastic. Retail price is $189.
Following the legal conflict, Backcountry ended up striking a deal with Marquette and taking over the product.
Alex Kaufman of Golden, Colorado said he’s lucky to own some, because Backcountry has ceased production.
“The skis themselves are extremely rudimentary tools,” Kaufman said. “They’re extremely durable, extremely simple. They allow you to go uphill and downhill with no transition… So they kind of enable a type of skiing that no other type of ski in existence enables.”
Kaufman eclipsed 100,000 vertical feet of combined uphill and downhill skiing on Marquettes last winter. Avoiding lift lines and I-70 traffic, he skis on a variety of moderate slopes near his home.
“Once you get good at these things, your eyes just start noticing all the places they might work," he said. "Some of them are very local to my house. Depending on the snowpack, a town park. Sometimes adjacent to big box stores there’s been a lot of landscaping and there’s a long, steep slope that happens to be there… Anything over about 80 vertical feet is fun to lap on these things.”
There’s about 6,000 pairs of Marquette skis in the world, and if you’re lucky, Kaufman said you may be able to find a pair in the corners of the internet.
He’s been bugging Backcountry for the last four years in an attempt to kickstart production.
“They sold through it, and have since stopped being interested in it,” Kaufman said. “Since then you can’t get them, but the company that controls the product, the mold, the future of it, is Backcountry… Maybe the goal though is to have it never exist because it is too accessible and affordable in competition with an inaccessible and expensive market which they serve. I don’t think that’s the case, but I’m just here to help if they ever want it.”
Using the moniker “Weird Foothill Guy,” Kaufman has accrued over 10,000 social media followers posting his outdoor adventures. He said skiers across the Mountain West are craving a winter recreation option that doesn’t involve the hassle of resorts or risky backcountry terrain.
— Weird Foothill Guy (@WFG_DEN) December 24, 2023
Will Shirola lives in between the Cottonwood Canyons and learned about the Marquettes thanks to Kaufman’s page.
“As someone who’s just getting into backcountry skiing, I thought it would be nice to have a more affordable option, something that I can kind of just screw around, mess around, and have fun on,” Shirola said. “But there’s really nothing in the market that fits those needs.”
Shirola hasn’t been able to find a pair of Marquettes online. He said the Salt Lake area would offer plenty of terrain for the specialty skis.
“It would be cool after a big storm to head up to the foothills above the university, just kind of rip some low angle lines,” Shirola said. “It’s definitely disappointing. I think there’s a gap in the market for a ski like that. And for a bigger company to come in and acquire a smaller one and then just shut down operations, it’s not a good day for the ski industry.”
Backcountry did not respond to a request for comment. The company, which is headquartered in Kimball Junction, was acquired by private equity firm TSG Consumer Partners in 2015.
Kaufman has his own website with more information about the Marquette skis and his endeavors - simpleskiing.com.
