4 ms·

The rise of 'backcountry' into prominence roughly corresponded with the rise of Backcountry as a retailer. In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often

by ISL 7y ago

The rise of 'backcountry' into prominence roughly corresponded with the rise of Backcountry as a retailer. In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often as it was called 'backcountry' (even moreso in prior years). Similarly, off-trail/rugged hiking was in the wilderness, not the backcountry, prior to the mid/late 2000s. I'm not sure how germane that is in this case, as I understand Backcountry has only filed for the trademark recently. I don't think the founding spirit of the company is in line with the current legal strategy -- Backcountry may feel that they must aggressively defend the trademark in order to have any sort of trademark. As an online retailer, a trademark seems sensible (a competitor named Backcountry.net seems uncouth). Suing Marquette Backcountry Skis is utterly inappropriate and absolutely out of line for the corporate culture I associate with Backcountry.com.

mthoms 7y ago
>The rise of 'backcountry' into prominence roughly corresponded with the rise of Backcountry as a retailer. In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often as it was called 'backcountry' 'Backcountry' to describe non-resort skiing/boarding has been in use since at least the early 90's. Probably earlier. I've literally never heard anyone say the word 'randonee' in North America. Not once. Source: I worked in the industry for more than two and a half decades.
- cmrdporcupine 7y ago
  I know this is going to sound pedantic but... randonnée is used in Quebec. Because they speak French. So yes, the term is used in North America. But other than that, yes, I take your point :-)
Angostura 7y ago
Looks like it is was a fairly popular term, with strong growth by the late 90s. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=backcountry&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_e...
- ghaff 7y ago
  I suspect the causal direction is that there was an increase in the outdoor recreation "industry" around that time which, among other things, drove an increase in the "backcountry" term. Making that word an obvious (if not SEO optimized because people weren't thinking in those terms in 1996) choice for a new-fangled e-commerce site thingie catering to that market.
  - ISL 7y ago
    Angostura's suggestion is a good one, that will allow us to test ghaff's conjecture: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ski+touring%2Cbackcountry%2C+hiking&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20Touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSKI%20TOURING%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHIKING%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Cski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20Touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSKI%20TOURING%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHIKING%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ski+touring%2C... The establishment of Backcountry Access in 1994 would also seem to a compelling countervailing argument against my recollection.
eagsalazar2 7y ago
Your timeline is not correct. "Touring" as a replacement for Randonee did happen around then (in the US anyway) but the term backcountry to denote any terrain outside of normal ski area boundaries and the practice of skiing such terrain has been along at least since the 80's and I'd imagine much longer.
- ghaff 7y ago
  That's my recollection as well although I can't prove it--and that's too long ago for Google Trends to be useful. In the US at least randonee also has a meaning distinct from backcountry cross country skiing in terms of equipment. I'm pretty sure I remember the outdoor group I'm a member of having backcountry (i.e. non-groomed trail) cross country skiing workshops going back to at least the 1990s.
  - ISL 7y ago
    Ah, that's true -- "backcountry skis" tended in the past to refer to off-trail XC skis rather than the more expansive usage it sees today.
  - eagsalazar2 7y ago
    The confusion, I think, comes from the conflation of two separate questions: 1. In ski area boundaries our outside (in-bounds, or "backcountry") 2. Downhill skiing, Randonee/Touring, or x-country (nothing to do with backcountry since you can do all of the above in bounds or in the backcountry). Backcountry, at least where I grew up in the PNW in the 90s, only pertained to where you were skiing, not to equipment or technique used to ski it.
deleted 7y ago
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taude 7y ago
We called it backcountry skiing in the mid-90s. It was a common name. Euros probably called it randonnee. But out in Lake Tahoe, California, we called it playing in the backcountry, sometimes with touring, etc. Backcountry.com definitely didn't create the word.
- CPLX 7y ago
  I moved to Colorado in the early 90’s and backcountry was already a super common term. It certainly predates these guys. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. I’ve never heard the term randonee until today, and at least in Colorado the term wilderness has always had a very specific jargon type meaning as referring to designated wilderness areas, like the Big Blue Wilderness, for example. The term is clearly defined by the US Forest Service.
- ISL 7y ago
  I definitely didn't intend to argue that Backcountry.com had created the word, only that my recollection was that the common usage of the term in the context of ski touring was roughly correlated. I just checked the earliest (2001) Internet Archive record for Turns-All-Year.com, and it also includes the word 'backcountry', so I'll stand corrected.
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  > Euros probably called it randonnee I guess you already know it, but in case you don't, shining a bit of light on ignorance never hurts: We have 24 official languages in Europe, in reality more than 200 distinct ones. Randonee, or most probably 'ski randonee' is french term for ski touring and its variants (randonee itself means rather hiking). No other language here uses this term, we have our own phrases for this beautiful, but sometimes dangerous activity. Other variant would be 'ski alpinism', but that's for more hardcore technical stuff (crampons, ice axes, harness, ropes, skis on the backpack type of experiences in very steep places)
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notatoad 7y ago
>In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often as it was called 'backcountry' (even moreso in prior years). Similarly, off-trail/rugged hiking was in the wilderness, not the backcountry, prior to the mid/late 2000s. do you have sources for any of that, or are you just making it up?
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't be a jerk in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ISL 7y ago
  I was actively ski touring beginning in 2006 and voraciously consuming every form of literature, book, and online content I could on the subject. In my recollection, it was far more common to call a Dynafit Comfort ski binding either a ski-touring binding or a randonee binding than it was to call it a backcountry-ski binding.
  - eagsalazar2 7y ago
    This might just be a regional thing. In the Pacific NW where I was skiing ~100 days/year in my teens and early 20s in the 90s, "Backcountry" was the term used to describe any skiing out of ski area boundaries. Touring or Randonee, where you skin uphill and then lock your heels to ski down, inbounds or out of bounds, were called Randonee and weren't particularly associated with the term Backcountry at all except that is typically where you would go to do Randonee.
bcrosby95 7y ago
Never heard of 'randonee', only backcountry, but I stopped skiing around 2000.

by ISL 7y ago

mthoms 7y ago

>The rise of 'backcountry' into prominence roughly corresponded with the rise of Backcountry as a retailer. In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often as it was called 'backcountry' 'Backcountry' to describe non-resort skiing/boarding has been in use since at least the early 90's. Probably earlier. I've literally never heard anyone say the word 'randonee' in North America. Not once. Source: I worked in the industry for more than two and a half decades.

cmrdporcupine 7y ago
I know this is going to sound pedantic but... randonnée is used in Quebec. Because they speak French. So yes, the term is used in North America. But other than that, yes, I take your point :-)

Angostura 7y ago

Looks like it is was a fairly popular term, with strong growth by the late 90s. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&case_insensitive=on&content=backcountry&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?year_start=1800&year_e...

ghaff 7y ago
I suspect the causal direction is that there was an increase in the outdoor recreation "industry" around that time which, among other things, drove an increase in the "backcountry" term. Making that word an obvious (if not SEO optimized because people weren't thinking in those terms in 1996) choice for a new-fangled e-commerce site thingie catering to that market.
- ISL 7y ago
  Angostura's suggestion is a good one, that will allow us to test ghaff's conjecture: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ski+touring%2Cbackcountry%2C+hiking&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20Touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSKI%20TOURING%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHIKING%3B%2Cc0#t4%3B%2Cski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bski%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20Touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSki%20touring%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BSKI%20TOURING%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Cbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bbackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BBackcountry%3B%2Cc0%3B.t4%3B%2Chiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bhiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHiking%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BHIKING%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ski+touring%2C... The establishment of Backcountry Access in 1994 would also seem to a compelling countervailing argument against my recollection.

eagsalazar2 7y ago

Your timeline is not correct. "Touring" as a replacement for Randonee did happen around then (in the US anyway) but the term backcountry to denote any terrain outside of normal ski area boundaries and the practice of skiing such terrain has been along at least since the 80's and I'd imagine much longer.

ghaff 7y ago
That's my recollection as well although I can't prove it--and that's too long ago for Google Trends to be useful. In the US at least randonee also has a meaning distinct from backcountry cross country skiing in terms of equipment. I'm pretty sure I remember the outdoor group I'm a member of having backcountry (i.e. non-groomed trail) cross country skiing workshops going back to at least the 1990s.
- ISL 7y ago
  Ah, that's true -- "backcountry skis" tended in the past to refer to off-trail XC skis rather than the more expansive usage it sees today.
- eagsalazar2 7y ago
  The confusion, I think, comes from the conflation of two separate questions: 1. In ski area boundaries our outside (in-bounds, or "backcountry") 2. Downhill skiing, Randonee/Touring, or x-country (nothing to do with backcountry since you can do all of the above in bounds or in the backcountry). Backcountry, at least where I grew up in the PNW in the 90s, only pertained to where you were skiing, not to equipment or technique used to ski it.

deleted 7y ago

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taude 7y ago

We called it backcountry skiing in the mid-90s. It was a common name. Euros probably called it randonnee. But out in Lake Tahoe, California, we called it playing in the backcountry, sometimes with touring, etc. Backcountry.com definitely didn't create the word.

CPLX 7y ago
I moved to Colorado in the early 90’s and backcountry was already a super common term. It certainly predates these guys. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. I’ve never heard the term randonee until today, and at least in Colorado the term wilderness has always had a very specific jargon type meaning as referring to designated wilderness areas, like the Big Blue Wilderness, for example. The term is clearly defined by the US Forest Service.
ISL 7y ago
I definitely didn't intend to argue that Backcountry.com had created the word, only that my recollection was that the common usage of the term in the context of ski touring was roughly correlated. I just checked the earliest (2001) Internet Archive record for Turns-All-Year.com, and it also includes the word 'backcountry', so I'll stand corrected.
saiya-jin 7y ago
> Euros probably called it randonnee I guess you already know it, but in case you don't, shining a bit of light on ignorance never hurts: We have 24 official languages in Europe, in reality more than 200 distinct ones. Randonee, or most probably 'ski randonee' is french term for ski touring and its variants (randonee itself means rather hiking). No other language here uses this term, we have our own phrases for this beautiful, but sometimes dangerous activity. Other variant would be 'ski alpinism', but that's for more hardcore technical stuff (crampons, ice axes, harness, ropes, skis on the backpack type of experiences in very steep places)

deleted 7y ago

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notatoad 7y ago

>In 2006, ski touring was called 'randonee' as often as it was called 'backcountry' (even moreso in prior years). Similarly, off-trail/rugged hiking was in the wilderness, not the backcountry, prior to the mid/late 2000s. do you have sources for any of that, or are you just making it up?

dang 7y ago
Please don't be a jerk in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ISL 7y ago
I was actively ski touring beginning in 2006 and voraciously consuming every form of literature, book, and online content I could on the subject. In my recollection, it was far more common to call a Dynafit Comfort ski binding either a ski-touring binding or a randonee binding than it was to call it a backcountry-ski binding.
- eagsalazar2 7y ago
  This might just be a regional thing. In the Pacific NW where I was skiing ~100 days/year in my teens and early 20s in the 90s, "Backcountry" was the term used to describe any skiing out of ski area boundaries. Touring or Randonee, where you skin uphill and then lock your heels to ski down, inbounds or out of bounds, were called Randonee and weren't particularly associated with the term Backcountry at all except that is typically where you would go to do Randonee.

bcrosby95 7y ago

Never heard of 'randonee', only backcountry, but I stopped skiing around 2000.