Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020 - 51

Feature .03

Courtesy Hansen Surfboards (left), Philip Howard (right)

Ski Skeller in Midland," says Howard, "but that's
the only one." That worked for a guy named Troy
Teague, who used to operate a proto-pop-up
ski shop in the late 1980s, which he would haul
around in the back of his truck and set up "kind of
like a traveling gun show," says Howard. Teague
freewheeled for about a season before settling
down with a small shop in Lubbock. He sold only
bargain gear, and people loved it. A deal is important in Texas, where the whole family loves to
ski. But the question for Howard when he bought
Troy's place in 2003 was how to keep satisfying
the bargain skier Teague once served while introducing new-and pricier-inventory.
"I was able to bring in brands that were more
recognizable," he says, and he gave the shop an
up-do with Columbia, Under Armor, Smith,
and Spy. Troy's Ski Lubbock grew, and today
it's a full-service shop with rentals and boot fitting. But you can still come in and pair those
$29 bibs with a $250 jacket. In the summer, the
shop sells wakeboards and skateboards. "But
that aspect is very small," says Howard. Because
even though "there's a lot of hate for Texans in
places like Colorado, we ski, we plan for it, we all
dress in nice outfits, and for us, it's a big event."

HANSEN SURFBOARDS
Encinitas, California

Skiing is just surfing on snow, so it's not that
strange that a shop opened by one of the pioneers of surfboard construction in the 1960s
should also carry gear on which to snow slide.
By 1969, Don Hansen was manufacturing
6,000 surfboards a year and distributing them
to roughly 200 East Coast vendors. But in the

HAVE SHOP, WILL TRAVEL
Hansen Surfboards (left) may be located in Encinitas,
but it serves skiers and riders headed to Mammoth
Mountain. Troy's Ski Lubbock owner Philip Howard,
with wife Andi and son Brian, brings big Texan smiles
to Purgatory Resort in Durango, Colorado (right).

1970s, the longboard business began to change
when Grubby Clark started to sell surfboard
foam to anyone who wanted to buy it.
At that time, Don, who also co-founded
the brand Ocean Pacific, started transitioning from manufacturing surfboards to selling
them, says his son Josh. And Hansen was about
to start selling ski gear. "If you remember, skiing became very popular in the '80s," says Josh.
Always a grabber of opportunity, Don bought
in, with a small investment from a friend, and
stocked the surf shop with skis, boots, bindings,
poles, and accessories. "It was such a wildcard,
and at the time retail was really challenging,"
says Josh, who now co-owns the shop. But
within two years, Don's ski biz was booming.
Josh attributes that success to the Los Angeles
area's relatively close proximity to Mammoth
Mountain, the fact that San Diego has always
been pretty affluent, and the proliferation of allaround outdoor adventure lovers. "In our business, we always say that snow retail is tricky and
at times very dangerous because you can't control the weather. But while we tend to buy for an
okay season, when we have an incredible snow
year, we're sold out by January."
That can't be all bad, because what humans
can't have they typically want more intensely.
And in good years, says Josh, "Snowsports sales
are still a pretty significant piece of our business." People come up to him and say, "It must be

so great. You're one of the last guys [and the last
shop in San Diego] to do ski and snowboard."
"But, literally, last year (a banner snow year) if
we'd have had another $250,000 or $500,000
of inventory, he says," we could have sold it."

MCGHIE'S

Las Vegas, Nevada
With a base elevation of 8,510 feet and an
11,239-foot summit, Lee Canyon ski and snowboard resort sits just just 45 minutes from the
Vegas Strip. The little area claims some legitimate vert-if you're willing to hike. Yeah, you
heard right: The place has three lifts but also
offers complimentary uphill passes so you can
skin, boot, or snowshoe for turns. If you do exert some uphill energy, you'll get 2,779 feet of
ultralight high-desert pow to plunder, without
the crowds of the Wasatch or Teton Pass. All that
makes the dedicated skiers and riders down in
the valley grin with glee. But they'd smile far less
without a shop to cater to their needs.
Enter McGhie's, which Randy McGhie and
his wife, Maria, opened in 1978. They started it
as a cross-country ski and backpacking shop,
but soon noticed Las Vegas was lousy with
downhill skiers. In the winter, they're a fullon ski shop; since 1984, year-round mountain
bike sales have plumped the coffers. Over the
past three decades, McGhie's has grown from
one shop (in Henderson) to three. Last year's
perfect Lee Canyon ski was the Head 93, says
McGhie. "As soon as I got one in the shop, I
tried to go back and order more." It's too bad he
couldn't because it was a banner winter, and "by
February, we were running out of sizes." O.R.

Winter 2020 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 51

Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020