Category: News/Updates

For those of you who have visited our new Chesterfield location since its grand opening in October of last year, you’ve seen the future look for all Alpine Shop stores. The images which span the walls include those our own customers have taken as they’ve explored the world.

This spring, all three Alpine Shop locations will take part in the fun as our Kirkwood and Columbia shops put up frames to showcase their customer’s adventures.

Simply put, we don’t want stock photos of models from California in our store. We want images of you, our Alpine Shop customers.

We will be choosing as many as 25 images for each of our stores, so please indicate which store (or stores) you shop at when you submit the images. If your photo is selected, you’ll receive a gift certificate for $25! From all the photos selected, we will select first, second and third prize winners for each store and a final grand prize winner chosen from those contest winners.

If you have a great photo of you or your family on an adventure anywhere throughout the world, please e-mail a high-resolution version of the shot to adventure@alpineshop.com. Please also include the names of everyone in the shot, the photographer and the specific location (as close as possible) where the photo was taken.
A Few Notes & Fine Prints…

Please understand that these images will need to be increased in size to 24″ tall or 48″ wide (and for front window photos up to 72″ tall). Mobile phone photos will simply not make the grade. For those of you with some experience with photography, your photos should still be over 80 dpi when height is set (not enlarged) to at least 24″ tall. Only a total of five photos may be submitted by each family. If you have questions, please contact the e-mail address above.

Please do not send single e-mails with over a total of 3 mb of files. If you a number of high-res photos you would like to send, please contact us at the e-mail above so we can give you our ftp access.

Images will be placed in our stores during the middle of May.

NOTE: $25 gift certificates will be given for total number of photos selected. (E.g. Family “A” submits 5 photos from three different e-mail addresses and 3 photos are selected for the walls. Family “A” would recieve three (3) $25 gift certificates.

For those of you who have been there before, I know you’re hearing the voice in your head right now at the end of the intro: “Welcome… to the Banff Mountain Film Festival…” For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, well, watch this:

As the host once again for the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, we’ve got TWO nights of shows this year, Wednesday, April 1 and Thursday, April 2 back at the Moolah Theatre and Lounge at 7 pm both nights.

Tickets go on sale tomorrow morning, March 6 at 10 am. $10 for either night or come both nights and get the second night for half price: $15 total. Drop in to any Alpine Shop location or call us at 314-962-7715 to pick up tickets before we sell out once again.

We hope you’ll join us for a pair of nights dedicated to the mountain life, to culture, to adventure and to a little fun.

Final film selections will be up on alpineshop.com soon.

As many of you remember Saturday morning’s weather for this weekend’s orienteering course at Rockwoods Range was a little poor: windy, cold and snowing. But, as it has been said: “there is no bad weather, just bad gear”, so I geared up and headed out. As I had planned, I chose the green course and electronic scoring.

One thing I noticed was that the clue sheet was covered in some sort of hieroglyphics. Apparently on the green course they use the IFO symbols, I probably should have learned those.

Off I went. I felt pretty good, a little cold as I left but from my two previous events I knew I would soon heat up. Down the road and past the playground, over the hill and then halfway down the gully and bingo!

Oh yeah, I forgot the 45 minutes of fruitless searching, then looking for #2 and backtracking to #1, then bingo…

It had not started well. #2 was easy, because I had already been there. It was up the opposite side of the creek, then back down to the creek and back up the other side for #3, I think there must be some sadistic tendencies in those who set these courses. From #3 to #4 I really used my oxygen deprived brain. I could just follow the contour of the hillside, with the creek to my right, at a nice cut-in with a large rock, bam! Well not really, it was more like head down to the creek, jump over the water and try to land on the opposite bank, well it looked like bank. It turns out it was just some snow covered leaves and sticks that swallowed my left leg up to my knee.

A few moments later I was crossing the same creek when I landed on a rock that bent my foot like a horseshoe. Then I twisted my ankle, got a twig snapped on the side of my face, then took a whipping twig strike to the giggle-berries, tripped over a branch and found #4!

From this marker to #5 was just follow a creek, halfway back up the hill and around the bend and there it should be. According to my clue sheet marker 169 would be on top of a small knoll. There it was, right where it should be, except it was marker 166. I spent the next 45 minutes looking back and forth. I climbed to the top of the ridge, found the trail (called a handrail) followed it over a hill then cut back down the side of the ridge and found marker 166, again.

I’d been in the woods for two hours at this point and I wasn’t even halfway done.

I couldn’t for the life of me find the fifth control. The sun had melted the snow on the western side of the gully, my feet were soaking (but still warm thanks to Smartwool’s new PhD socks with WOW technology) my legs were wet, my ankle had a nice twinge and I had had enough. I checked the map and looked for the most direct route back to the start and the car.

As you probably know, while creeks are the roads of the forest the ridge-tops are the highways, really cold and windy highways. I pulled my hat down swallowed my pride and headed home, then to add injury to insult I of course got a cramp in my right quad. I got back without too much trouble, turned in my SI card and asked where marker 166 was on a map so I could see how far off I really was. Oh wait! the course setter had made an error on the clue sheet; I was supposed to be looking for 166. He was really sorry, and apologized profusely.

I got in the car, cranked the heat on my feet and headed home to think of how I could spin this in some sort of positive light, at least I had an Alpine Shop driclime jacket on. Don’t worry kids, only 33 days until the next one!

Last week, Alpine Shop’s Chesterfield location kicked off the official beginning of our fall season with five days of celebration. Celebration about what, you ask? The Grand Opening of our new location at 1616 Clarkson Road.

Start exploring: your world, your limits, your life.

That’s what this blog is about. Here at Alpine Shop, we truly believe in the transformative power of the outdoors. So, whether you’re planning on a multi-day canoe trip down the Jacks Fork or a walk outside your front door, start exploring! You never know what you’ll find once you take that first step outside your comfort zone.

Make every day an adventure. That’s what we live by here at Alpine Shop and we’re going to keep you on top of all the adventures that we find.

Thanks for reading.