For over two decades, Backcountry has been a trailblazing online retailer of outdoor gear. It stocks its digital shelves with thousands of products from brands big and small, and it employs a cohort of “Gearheads” to help shoppers sift through it all to find what they need. It, perhaps more than any other retailer, has digitized the best qualities of brick-and-mortar outdoor stores. Last year it went a step further, harnessing its learnings to create its own branded collection of technical outerwear. Backcountry just revealed the follow-up to that line, the Winter Pursuit Collection, which it built in collaboration with Gore-Tex.
Gore-Tex has long been a standard-bearer in the outerwear space, and Backcountry is utilizing its waterproof membrane technology to ensure that the new collection is capable of handling all of the conditions that skiers and snowboarders might encounter on mountains around the world. It’s also using Gore-Tex’s newer Infinium line, which focuses less on waterproofing and more on other characteristics such as breathability, in a jacket and bib pair that it created explicitly for backcountry touring.
Beyond the proven advantages of Gore-Tex, Backcountry’s unique position as a veteran retailer makes the Winter Pursuit Collection stand out in a sea of new products. Having had their hands on thousands of items from other brands over the years, its Gearheads have identified key features — like a dual zipper for additional venting in the Hayden Touring Jacket, or a loop for securing an avalanche beacon in the Cottonwoods Bib — that they were able to contribute in the design process.
Plus, Backcountry’s direct-to-consumer position with its branded line means that everything is remarkably affordable. At $480, the Rustler Jacket is the most expensive piece in the collection, but comparable jackets from other companies would cost hundreds more.
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