But the snow gods have smiled on Winter Park recently. As of Thursday, the resort had received 340 inches of snow this season, the most of any ski area in Colorado. Its base depth of just under six feet stood at 11% above normal for the date.

And so, even as other ski areas are shutting down for the season — eight have already closed and five more will close on Sunday — Winter Park is still going strong. It will stay open two more weeks, while the Mary Jane side of the mountain will remain open as long as conditions permit. Last year, that was May 28.

Resort companies like Alterra and Vail Resorts that are investing in expansions of their snowmaking systems acknowledge the threat of climate change is a consideration in their thinking, but the more immediate goal is to extend the length of seasons in the near term.

“There are benefits to it being a hedge against climate change, but that’s not why we did it,” said Winter Park spokeswoman Jen Miller. “It’s kind of an interesting story for us, because we are now one of the resorts that has the longest seasons in Colorado. We’re opening earlier and we’re staying open later.”

Vail Resorts invested more than $100 million in snowmaking company-wide over the past 10 years. In 2019, Vail Mountain underwent the largest snowmaking expansion project in the resort’s history with a heavy focus on two trails from the summit down to Mid-Vail. The company also has invested in snowmaking at Keystone, so that it can offer skiing at the top of that mountain in October, and at Breckenridge, where it aims to offer skiing into May.

“We’ve been able to extend our season by 12 days at our Rocky Mountain resorts,” said Bill Rock, president of the mountain division at Vail Resorts. “The industry (overall) has invested in snowmaking as well, but the industry in the Rockies has added about five days.

“We look to provide more days, and more consistent conditions, for our guests,” he continued. “We try to open Keystone as early as we can, and thanks to our investment in automated snowmaking, we’re able to do that. We go into May at Breckenridge, and that’s because of our investments in snowmaking there. We’ve been able to have some of our longest seasons at Vail over the last few years.”

Mountaintops tend to be colder than base areas and can hold snow longer. That’s why early-season skiing at Keystone and Vail can involve skiing at the top of the mountain, but riding the lift or gondola down to the base rather than skiing.

In 2020, the Aspen Skiing Company installed snowmaking at the top of Aspen Mountain for similar reasons. “It was very much intended to create an upper-mountain opening and closing scenario in lower snow years,” said Aspen Snowmass spokeswoman Hannah Dixon, adding that there are provisions to do the same at Snowmass in that resort’s master plan.

According to the Lakewood-based National Ski Areas Association, the average length of ski seasons in the Rocky Mountain region over the past decade has fluctuated between 122 and 132 days, excluding the COVID-shortened season of 2019-20 (103 days). The average length over that period has been 127 days, but the past three seasons stood at 130 days or more.

Miller said Winter Park exceeded 200 days the past two seasons, and it will again this season if Mary Jane hangs on until late May as it did last year. Winter Park has seen above-average snowfall the past three seasons, too.

“This is our 85th season,” Miller said. “If you go back to the early days of skiing in Colorado, we didn’t start skiing until late December or January. Natural snow is variable, and snowmaking has allowed us to broaden the season. It’s part of doing business as a ski area in the west.”

Although ski areas operate their snowmaking guns primarily in early season, resort officials say those efforts continue to pay dividends in the spring because manmade snow is denser. As a result, it is more durable and holds up better when warmer temperatures arrive in the spring.

“When you build a super-solid, consistent base on the front end, you see less snowmelt and fewer issues when temperatures warm in the spring,” said Vail Resorts spokeswoman Lindsay Hogan. “It has benefits on both sides of the season.”

Eldora Mountain Resort, the Front Range ski area that opened Nov. 7 this season and will close on April 20, is seeking approval to expand its water storage capabilities for snowmaking in the future.

“That is just a common-sense hedge against what we’re seeing in terms of climate trends,” said Eldora spokesman Sam Bass. “We need the opportunity to store more water in case there is a summer when our primary snowmaking water storage doesn’t fill up all the way. Any ski resort that’s thinking about the future, which is every one, is probably thinking about ways to ensure that they have adequate water supplies and the ability to make snow.”

The ability to offer early-season skiing is a key part of Eldora’s competitive strategy. This season it opened a week earlier than scheduled. Last season, it opened two weeks ahead of schedule.

“That time of year, we’re essentially the same size as Winter Park or Copper, or any of the big guys, because we all only have a couple of trails open,” Bass said. “The Ikon passholder, early in the season, if they only have two or three Ikon options to choose from, they say, ‘Why would I drive to Winter Park or Copper when I can just drive to Eldora for the same amount of terrain or more?’ It’s an opportunity for us to make hay early and provide a good product for the people who really want to get out and get after it early-season.”

The looming specter of climate change remains a concern for the industry, however.

“Climate change has a real impact on our business, and it’s something that we’re concerned about,” said Rock, who is second in command at Vail Resorts to chief executive Kirsten Lynch.  “We’re uniquely positioned to serve our guests during this volatility that it represents. The $100 million in snowmaking across the company has allowed us to provide reliable conditions for our guests throughout the whole season.”

The same is true of Winter Park’s massive investment in snowmaking.

“It puts us in a much better position long-term, depending on how snowfall will be in the next 10, 20, 30 years,” Miller said. “It’s a tricky subject. It’s something that ski areas have done for a very long time, but it’s become more of a reality that this is what we’re going to need to be able to operate in the future.”

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

Wednesday-April 18. If you’ve ever skied Arapahoe Basin and wondered what kind of daredevil it takes to ski or ride its rugged East Wall, next week is your chance to find out without risking your neck. On Wednesday through Friday, 80 freeride skiers and snowboarders will be competing on it to qualify for next year’s pro Freeride World Tour.

Freeriding is a form of competitive skiing or snowboarding in which athletes test themselves on steep, ungroomed terrain. The famous East Wall is a perfect venue with exposed faces, tight chutes and other gnarly terrain challenges. Competitors are judged on line choice, control, fluidity, technique, air and style.

The East Wall is visible from the Lenawee Express lift. There also will be good viewing spots at the Black Mountain Lodge and an on-mountain vendor village. A lift ticket is required, which costs $104-$120 for a full day (date dependent). freerideworldtour.com or arapahoebasin.com — John Meyer

Go fly a kite!

Sunday. Warm, sunny weather is forecast for the Front Range this weekend, making it the ideal time to revisit the Arvada Kite Festival. This year’s 20th anniversary event is a family friendly gathering with free kids activities such as inflatables, face painting and a “Nurf Terf” Zone; demos from professional kite flyers (yes, they exist); 100-plus vendors including food trucks; and Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Curiosity Cruiser.

Bring your own kite or buy one at the festival. Free parking starts at 10:45 a.m., with a free “bike valet” from Bike Friendly Arvada. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday, April 13, at Stenger Sports Complex, 58th Avenue and Quail Street in Arvada. arvadaco.gov/1245/2025-arvada-kite-festival — John Wenzel

Blossom and Bloom this spring

Saturday. The immersive theme party Blossom and Bloom, which comes to East Colfax Avenue’s Champagne Tiger on Saturday, April 12, is geared toward a floral theme — which organizer Gary Adrian Randall, from producer Haus of Other, said ranges from “a subtle floral accent or a head-to-toe masterpiece.”

The night includes live sets by Richi Ramos, DJ Buddy Bravo, and Vio the Violinist, and performance artist MotherDaddy, along with the costume showcase, a vendor market (for last-minute outfit additions) and a scavenger hunt with prizes.

A portion of the proceeds will directly support Trans Lifeline, an organization that provides resources to trans people, Randall said. It takes place from 6-11:30 p.m. at 601 E. Colfax Ave. in Denver. Tickets: $23.18 via eventbrite.com — John Wenzel

Guitars, toys, radios and more

Sunday. A quartet of collector’s shows are coming to Denver this weekend, with the annual Toy & Doll Supershow, Vintage Voltage & Vinyl Expo, Colorado Guitar Show and Colorado Radio Collectors Club uniting under one roof for the first time. Those first two events are decades-old gatherings, and along with the upstarts, they’re angled toward swapping, buying and selling rare, vintage and collectible items.

They’re all running 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday, April 13, at the National Western’s Expo Hall and Hall of Education, 4655 Humboldt St. in Denver, just east of I-25 on I-70. Admission is $10 to get into all shows; kids aged 10 and younger get in free. Parking is also free. For more information visit danacainevents.com. — John Wenzel

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

Brian O’Neal, a Greenwood Village resident, had a close encounter with that bear Sunday. O’Neal said he was skiing with his son. It was their first run of the day. They were cutting from the Peru Express chairlift over to the Summit Express chairlift on Last Chance, a green beginner run.

“It happened so quick,” O’Neal said. “I was just trying not to run into it.”

O’Neil is the skier in the blue jacket in the video, who came face-to-face with the bear, turning out of its way on the ski run. He said a bystander captured the video and sent it to him.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ryan Spencer (@summitspencer)

Read more on Summit Daily.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

Ski Cooper is offering $35 lift tickets — the price they charged for children ages 6-14 this season — while Monarch is charging $39. Both close on Sunday.

For comparison, Eldora is offering lift tickets in advance online for $99 through closing day on April 20. Copper Mountain will offer $99 lift tickets from April 14 through closing day on May 11.

The other ski areas closing for the season on Sunday are Aspen Highlands, Beaver Creek and Silverton. After Sunday, Purgatory will be open weekends-only through April 27

Buttermilk, Crested Butte, Keystone, Powderhorn, Sunlight, Telluride and Wolf Creek closed last Sunday.

Cooper, which is located 10 miles north of Leadville on Tennessee Pass, has 100% of its terrain open with a mid-mountain base depth of 57 inches. Monarch, 140 miles from Denver at Monarch Pass, has a 64-inch mid-mountain base with 100% of its beginner, intermediate and expert terrain open. Its double-black slopes are 88% open.

Temperatures at Cooper will be in the 30s Tuesday and Wednesday, then in the 40s through Sunday, according to the OpenSnow reporting and forecasting service. Monarch will mostly be in the 40s with a high temperature of 50 forecast for Saturday.

Areas scheduled to close April 20 include Aspen Mountain, Eldora, Snowmass, Steamboat, and Vail. The Winter Park base will close on April 27,  but its Mary Jane complex will remain open as long as conditions permit. Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Loveland and Arapahoe Basin also will remain open into May.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

JACKSON, N.H. — A skier since age 4, Thomas Brennick now enjoys regular trips to New Hampshire’s Black Mountain with his two grandchildren.

“It’s back to the old days,” he said from the Summit Double chairlift on a recent sunny Friday. “It’s just good, old-time skiing at its best.”

Behind the scenes, the experience is now propelled by a high-tech system designed to increase efficiency at the state’s oldest ski area. And while small, independent resorts can’t compete on infrastructure or buying power with conglomerates like Vail, which owns nearby Attitash Mountain Resort and seven others in the Northeast alone, at least one entrepreneur is betting technology will be “a really great equalizer.”

That businessman is Erik Mogensen, who bought Black Mountain last year and turned it into a lab for his ski mountain consultancy, Entabeni Systems. The company builds systems that put lift tickets sales, lesson reservations and equipment rentals online while collecting detailed data to inform decisions such as where to make more snow and how much.

“A lot of general managers will go out and look at how many rows of cars are parked, and that’s kind of how they tell how busy they are,” Mogensen said. “We really want to look at that transactional data down to the deepest level.”

That includes analyzing everything from the most popular time to sell hot dogs in the lodge to how many runs a season pass holder makes per visit.

“The large operators, they can do a lot of things at scale that we can’t. They can buy 20 snow cats at a time, 10 chairlifts, those types of things. We can’t do that, but we’re really nimble,” Mogensen said. “We can decide to change the way we groom very quickly, or change the way we open trails, or change our (food and beverage) menu in the middle of a day.”

Transforming a small-time resort

Mogensen, who says his happiest moments are tied to skiing, started Entabeni Systems in 2015, driven by the desire to keep the sport accessible. In 2023, he bought the company Indy Pass, which allows buyers to ski for two days each at 230 independent ski areas, including Black Mountain. It’s an alternative to the Epic and Ikon multi-resort passes offered by the Vail and Alterra conglomerates.

Black Mountain was an early participant in Indy Pass. When Mogensen learned it was in danger of closing, he was reminded of his hometown’s long-gone ski area. He bought Black Mountain aiming to ultimately transform it into a cooperative.

Many Indy Pass resorts also are clients of Entabeni Systems, including Utah’s Beaver Mountain, which bills itself as the longest continuously-run family owned mountain resort in the U.S.

Kristy Seeholzer, whose husband’s grandfather founded Beaver Mountain, said Entabeni streamlined its ticketing and season pass system. That led to new, lower-priced passes for those willing to forgo skiing during holiday weeks or weekends, she said.

“A lot of our season pass holders were self-limiting anyway. They only want to ski weekdays because they don’t want to deal with weekends,” she said. “We could never have kept track of that manually.”

Though she is pleased overall, Seeholzer said the software can be challenging and slow.

“There are some really great programs out there, like on the retail side of things or the sales side of things. And one of the things that was a little frustrating was it felt like we were reinventing the wheel,” she said.

Not everyone is a fan

Sam Shirley, 25, grew up skiing in New Hampshire and worked as a ski instructor and ski school director in Maine while attending college. But he said increasing technology has drastically changed the way he skis, pushing him to switch mostly to cross-country.

“As a customer, it’s made things more complicated,” he said. “It just becomes an extra hassle.”

Shirley used to enjoy spur-of-the-moment trips around New England, but has been put off by ski areas reserving lower rates for those who buy tickets ahead. He doesn’t like having to provide detailed contact information, sometimes even a photograph, just to get a lift ticket.

It’s not just independent ski areas that are focused on technology and data. Many others are using lift tickets and passes embedded with radio frequency identification chips that track skiers’ movements.

Vail Resorts pings cell phones to better understand how lift lines are forming, which informs staffing decisions, said John Plack, director of communications. Lift wait times have decreased each year for the past three years, with 97% under 10 minutes this year, he said.

“Our company is a wildly data-driven company. We know a lot about our guest set. We know their tastes. We know what they like to ski, we know when they like to ski. And we’re able to use that data to really improve the guest experience,” he said.

How the big guys battle meager winters

That improvement comes at a cost. A one-day lift ticket at Vail’s Keystone Resort in Colorado sold for $292 last week. A season pass cost $418, a potentially good deal for diehard skiers, but also a reliable revenue stream guaranteeing Vail a certain amount of income even as ski areas face less snow and shorter winters.

The revenue from such passes, especially the multi-resort Epic Pass, allowed the company to invest $100 million in snowmaking, Plack said.

“By committing to the season ahead of time, that gives us certainty and allows us to reinvest in our resorts,” he said.

Mogensen insists bigger isn’t always better, however. Lift tickets at Black Mountain cost $59 to $99 per day and a season’s pass is about $450.

“You don’t just come skiing to turn left and right. You come skiing because of the way the hot chocolate tastes and the way the fire pit smells and what spring skiing is and what the beer tastes like and who you’re around,” he said. “Skiing doesn’t have to be a luxury good. It can be a community center.”

Brennick, the Black Mountain lift rider who was skiing with his grandchildren, said he has noticed a difference since the ski area was sold.

“I can see the change,” he said. “They’re making a lot of snow and it shows.”

___

Ramer reported from Concord, New Hampshire.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

The decision bucks an ski industry-wide trend of passes increasing.

Both the Epic Pass and the Ikon Pass launched at historically high prices ahead of the 2025-26 season.

The Epic Pass started at $1,051, a 7% increase from last year and a new high for Vail Resorts. The Keystone Plus Pass launch price was raised from $390 in 2024 to $418 in 2025. The Ikon Pass saw an $80 increase from when it went on sale for the first time last year. At a price point of $1,329, this year marks the highest early-bird price in the history of the Ikon Pass.

In comparison, Loveland will offer adult season passes for $599 or $549 for renewal. Young adult passes will cost $409 for first-time buyers, a child pass will cost $199 and a senior pass will also cost $199.

Read the full story from our partner at summitdaily.com.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

“The entire operating unit will be closed, and the closure of the operating unit is expected to be permanent. It is expected that the first separations will occur on June 2, 2025,” wrote David Ganick, the company’s vice president of human resources, in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act or WARN letter sent to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Eliminated positions include 22 human resources coordinators, 8 internal mobility senior coordinators, 6 rotating senior coordinators and 5 HR shared services specialists.

Ganick said the closure is part of the company’s “Resource Efficiency Transformation Plan,” which CEO Kirsten Lynch announced in late September. The plan targets $100 million in annual savings within the next two years, generated through a 14% reduction to the corporate workforce and reductions of under 1% to operations workers located at the company’s 42 resorts.

“No matter how big or small the impact of position eliminations, we do not take lightly any decision that affects our team members,” Lynch said in a statement last September.

Vail Resorts has struggled to gain traction since a pandemic bump five years ago that pushed its share prices above $250 and faced a strike by ski patrollers in Utah that made national headlines.The stock has traded around $160 a share in recent weeks.

Vail Resorts reported having about 7,600 year-round and 44,900 seasonal employees as of July 31. The company has grown rapidly over the past decade, going from 10 resorts to more than 42 in four countries. The company’s Colorado resorts are Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone and Crested Butte.

Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.

By the end of April, the only areas expected to be open are Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Loveland and Arapahoe Basin.

Many areas seem likely to close with good snow cover, though. As of Thursday, according to figures curated by the OpenSnow reporting and forecasting service, 12 Colorado resorts have above-average base depths. They included Winter Park, Steamboat, Keystone, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland, Eldora, Copper Mountain and Breckenridge. Vail and Beaver Creek were close to average, coming in at 95% and 99%, respectively.

Base depths are expected to grow over the next week as a series of storms is headed to the high country.

“The total snow from Friday through Thursday, which includes three storms, should get into the 10- to 20-inch range for most areas,” OpenSnow founding meteorologist Joel Gratz wrote in his Thursday morning update, “so it’ll be a return to winter after this week’s summer sneak peek.”

The 30-day forecast for April, issued by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service, calls for above-average temperatures in Colorado and below-average precipitation.

Colorado ski area closing dates for 2024-2025 season

March 30: Granby Ranch

April 6: Buttermilk, Crested Butte, Keystone, Powderhorn, Sunlight, Telluride, Wolf Creek

April 13: Aspen Highlands, Beaver Creek, Ski Cooper, Monarch, Silverton (Purgatory will be open daily through April 13, and after that will operate on weekends through April 27

April 20: Aspen Mountain, Eldora, Snowmass, Steamboat, Vail

April 27: Winter Park (Mary Jane will remain open as long as conditions permit. Last year that came on May 28)

May 11: Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Loveland

Arapahoe Basin: As usual, A-Basin plans to stay open as long as conditions permit

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

Segundo, the state’s oldest operating lift, began service on Aspen Mountain as Lift 3 in 1954. In 1969, it was replaced and sold to Sunlight, which had debuted as a ski area in 1966. It went into service there in 1973 as Sunlight’s second lift, hence the name Segundo. Resort officials have designated Friday as Segundo Day.

Segundo’s last day in service is likely to be April 6, when Sunlight closes for the season, but Segundo’s sendoff celebration will happen Friday with extended hours.

Those who want to pay their respects will be able to ride Segundo from Sunlight’s normal closing time of 4 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. Those who don’t already have Sunlight passes will be able ride Segundo starting at 4 p.m. for $20.

“We’re just hoping people come out and experience all eyes on the lift for two and a half hours, when the sun is getting low,” said Travis Baptiste, Sunlight’s director of business development. “We think it will be a really cool day.”

Segundo’s chairs seat two with a single hanger pole between the passengers. The lift was built by the Heron Engineering Company, founded by the legendary lift designer Robert Heron, which built 120 chairlifts across the country.

It will be replaced by what used to be Arapahoe Basin’s Lenawee, a three-passenger chair which was removed in the summer of 2022 and replaced by a high-speed, six-person chair. Installation of that lift at Sunlight was delayed for a year while the installer dealt with a construction backlog caused by COVID-19.

‘We’re really proud that we are repurposing the Lenawee Lift, because that is something that could have ended up in the scrap yard,” Baptiste said. “That lift has at least 25 years of service left on it.”

Sunlight is also replacing the Primo lift, a double that began operation in 1966. It will be replaced this summer by a four-person chair built by Poma in Grand Junction.

“It is coming off the assembly line as we speak,” Baptiste said.

This week, though, the focus will be on Segundo. Baptiste is hoping Front Range skiers and riders will consider coming over for some fun nostalgia.

“We really just wanted to designate a day with all eyes on Segundo,” Baptiste said. “We’re hoping people travel to come ride the lift and be on a piece of history – your last chance to ride the oldest in-service lift in Colorado. The biggest thing is for our local community. We have people living here who are on four or five generations of their family riding on this lift, so there is a serious emotional attachment. Some of those generations started off running the lift in Aspen.”

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.

Hiking is one of my all-time favorite activities. Nothing can kill my vibe when I’m trekking through a picturesque Colorado forest miles away from the city and cellphone service. That is, until nature calls.

Every wilderness woman has a story about going off-trail to find a spot where they can relieve themselves without exposing the light of a full moon to other recreationists. Sometimes there are consequences. One of my most memorable experiences involves getting a dozen mosquito bites in places where the sun doesn’t shine.

Luckily, one Colorado company has set out to solve this conundrum with innovative pants – and more recently snow gear – that allow ladies to urinate outside as freely and discreetly as their male counterparts.

Founded in 2018, Gnara apparel company patented a design with a zipper that runs all the way up the backside of its bottoms, enabling women to go to the bathroom without taking their pants off. Gnara launched its first product, the Go There Pant, in 2019 before adapting its so-called GoFly Zipper Technology to hiking shorts, leggings, stretchy athletic shorts and overalls. (The company has been based in Gunnison since 2022.)

The concept was inspired by co-founder and CEO Georgia Grace Edwards’ experience working as a glacier guide in Alaska in 2016. Every time she needed to pee, she had to walk long distances and hop crevasses to find privacy. Eventually, she stopped drinking water so she wouldn’t have to go to the bathroom, which is equally as dangerous.

“I realized it wasn’t just a problem for me, but it’s actually a problem for 56% of women in the U.S. who have self-reportedly had a bathroom accident outside in the past year,” Edwards said. “As a glacier guide, my job was to be responsible for other people’s safety and I was harming my own physical performance to try to solve this, which was putting everyone on the glacier at risk. That’s why it has stuck with me for so long.”

Determined to bridge the gender clothing gap, Edwards purchased a pair of kids’ ski pants, fabric, buttons and Velcro, and created a prototype. At the time, she was attending Middlebury College in Vermont and taking an entrepreneurial class that helped her develop a solid business plan. All that laid the groundwork for what would eventually become Gnara’s flagship product.

There were plenty of iterations along the way, however. The first draft of Edwards’ pants featured eye-catching crotch zipper colors like pink, yellow and lime green. Today, the most important aspects of the design are what make the zippers comfortable and inconspicuous, such as a flap on the buttocks to disguise the zipper as a normal seam. There’s also a flap of fabric on the inside so wearers can comfortably go commando.

I bought my first pair of Gnara hiking pants this winter, and while I have yet to put them to use in the wild, I can confirm they are functional and easy to unzip. They even have large pockets that my phone fits into, a rarity for women’s pants.

What I’m most excited about, though, are Gnara’s newest products: a ski bib made in partnership with snowboard icon Burton and compatible base layer bottoms, which are currently available for pre-order for $398 and $98, respectively. Edwards said Gnara has almost always offered new products via pre-order to manufacture sustainably, in terms of materials, inventory and the business’ overhead expenses.

For Edwards, the collaboration marks a full-circle moment. The first product she wanted to manufacture was a ski bib, but because of the cost, she pivoted to make pants, which are more accessible and useful year-round.

“It’s really meaningful that Burton was willing to give this a chance and test it out with us and legitimize it in a way that proves that the GoFly and performance-driven gear for women aren’t niche things. They’re universal and super necessary,” Edwards said.

Her last point speaks to the need for innovation in women’s fashion. Wearing pants was long considered a female faux pas in professional settings. It wasn’t until 1969 that an elected official, Rep. Charlotte T. Reid of Illinois, wore pants on the House floor for the first time, according to The Washington Post. As recently as 1993, wearing pants on the Senate floor constituted an act of protest in favor of gender equality.

Edwards said that stigma is why there have been relatively few inventions for women’s bottoms, though she receives resounding support when she tells people about the GoFly zipper.

“I know I’m not the first person to think about this functionality,” she said. “Most women from the inception of pants til now have considered this and several people have tried to do it in different ways. I think they were just ahead of their time.”

Gnara’s mantra is #PeeFreely, and you can do so by shopping at gnara.com.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Adventurist, to get outdoors news sent straight to your inbox.