With autumn quickly approaching Altitude-sports.com is hiring!
Are you an outdoor enthusiast? Do you have a passion for technical clothing and equipment?
Take the first step towards an exciting future.
Altitude-sports.com, a leader in outdoor apparel and equipment, is looking for talented people to work at its Montreal-based head office. Find out more about which positions we are looking to fill
Achtung! Mark is that blurry human shape in the midground, not the plants
NAME
Mark Smith, Mr Emo, Sasquatch
FAVOURITE SPOT IN MONT-TREMBLANT
My Neck
FAVOURITE THING FROM ALTITUDE-SPORTS.COM
My black and white Chugach 16 by The North Face.
YOU WOULD NEVER…
Play truth or dare. See more Mark Altitude in Tremblant
The Thinker -Laughing
NAME
Mauricio Prieto
NICK NAME
Mao (because 90 % of the people at Altitude can’t pronounce my name).
JOB
IT and Operations director (oh yeah, and sometimes I fiddle with the scanner…BEEP).
FAVOURITE SPOT IN MONTREAL
Jean-Drapeau park because I can sit by the river and look at the city. If I need to think and sort things out, that’s where I go. Read more about Mauricio 'The Wonderful' Prieto
What outdoor enthusiast has never dreamed of turning their passion into their profession? Take a few moments and imagine what your workday would look like: you would have to go on a beautiful hike and you would get paid to spend the day on the water in your canoe. No longer a weekend activity, being in the outdoors would become a way of life. Certain people have decided to take the plunge and live off their passion.
At the peak of a great career
Working for Altitude-Sports has its perks. Since I've started here, I've been exposed to a whole new world of clothing, gear, and equipment. I get to try out different coats, gloves, sleeping bags, and backpacks. I get to fondle coyote fur all day without having to buy a Canada Goose jacket (or get bitten)!
a coyote eating my christmas dinner
Although I have to admit, the most amazing thing I've discovered since my arrival has got to be the discovery of Merino wool. I tell you, there's nothing like having one of those sheep close to your naked skin.
But I digress...
The problem is, however, that working here is a double-edged sword. I may have become knowledgeable about, and even fallen in love with tons of brands and products, but this has left me wanting to equip myself with more and more. And I'm not about to stop paying rent just so I can completely drape myself in Merino wool. So my brain had an idea.
Sunday I went to my first climbing competition, at Horizon Roc in Montreal. And boy did it go well! It also happened to be my birthday. The day started at 9am with the registration, and a little gift bag filled with stickers and an ice pack (not very exciting). They had blocked off part of the gym where they had put up some all-new bouldering problems (for those who do not speak climbers' language: bouldering is when you don't need a rope because you only go up about 2 meters and thick mattresses are installed at the base of the boulder). There were about 80 participants, and women were definitely in the minority.
So I put on the new T-shirt they gave me, and found my two girlfriends amongst the crowd. We had from 10am to 3pm to climb as many problems as we could. Our total score was going to be tallied up at the end of the day. We got more points for climbing the problems on our first try, and of course the harder problems were worth more as well. I have to admit, I was scared to get started, not knowing what strategy to take. I didn't want to tire myself out on too many easy ones, or waste too much time trying to finish harder ones...In the end, I think I ended up climbing about 20 or so problems, some of which I attempted many times. Read more about Catherine`s first bouldering competition
ALEXANDRE LAPOINTE, Axel.
Musician.
YOUR FAVOURITE SPOT IN MONTRÉAL
Café Olympico on St-Viateur and Waverly. My first coffee there…was like my first love.
Wow! I haven't seen such an intense video in a long time. I almost feel bad posting it. But I figure it serves as a good safety reminder as well as a good rebuttal to that most dangerous (and fun) of questions: "What's the worst that can happen?" For busy people, they talk for about a minute before dropping-in.
Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.
Laura has a pretty colourful personality
LAURA SMITH, my friends call me Laur, my sister calls me Elle, Phil calls me Lemon.
Human Resource Director.
YOUR SPOT IN MONTREAL
King George Park in Westmount. Most people know it as Murray Hill. Read on about Laura Smith
A step-by-step guide to Germain
GERMAIN GAUTHIER, Germ.
Manager at La Boutique The North Face par Altitude, student of Laura Smith's.
YOUR SPOT IN MONTREAL
The Mount Royal because its stairs and paths feel secretive.
My calves ache and my quads shake, but my smile shines like a thousand LED headlamps. It is certainly true that without pain you cannot have pleasure; however, this afternoon I learned once again that having both simultaneously can be a more fervent experience. Let me, like I so often do, set the stage for you:
Alongside his wheeled, aluminum steed stands a man (trying desperately to remain a boy- that’s me), helmet in hand, modest calves coyly poking out from his cycling shoes. A nervous smile escapes his lips. Next to said man/boy is the owner of a great local bike store (Tremblant’s Cycles et Sports), and all-round pleasant fellow who had graciously accepted to take me for a “relaxed” ride around the nearby trails. A beautiful sheep dog, barely bigger than her owner’s cast iron legs, waits for the proverbial bell to signal the start of what I believe to be an epic ride with a fierce, but relaxed, pace. What have I gotten myself into?
Mark should have neither watched nor listened to this video before leaving Read more about the Ride
Up until last night I would have said that The Sixth Sense was a fantastic movie. Great concept, good actors (yes, I know Bruce Willis was in it), so on and so forth. Tangentially, I would have argued that sleeping in an old farm house in the country, listening to nothing but the bed bugs singing, not a porch light in sight, was wondrous too. Then I went to bed.
Not into pillow fights
Skip ahead about four hours. I’m curled up in my Superman onezy, sucking my thumb in the manliest way possible when all of a sudden I bolt upright frozen in fear. Burned into my retinas was a woman. No, she wasn’t wearing lingerie or in/around a pillow fight. She was more of the dead variety. Perhaps once she had participated in frisky fights involving pillows, but not recently in my opinion. Her piercing eyes froze my shaking frame in place. Although not present when I awoke, I knew, like a cold sore, she was laying in wait for an inopportune moment to spring forth. Read more Ghost
Photographer : Vanessa F
MAGALIE BERNARD, Maggie, Magalette, Margarine, Magalerie, Bern, Mike.
Multi-talented Director of Customer Service for Altitude-sports.com
YOUR SPOT IN MONTREAL
The Mr Pinchot bakery on the bike path, corner Marie-Anne and Brébeuf. In particular because the half-loaf that they make is just the right size for one person, and thus it doesn’t have time to dry out.
A good place to find fresh air
I do apologize for leaving you hanging like that in my previous article, but my unquenchable desire to use question marks got the best of me. Here I am once again. So fret not my darlings, that fresh air did not choke my city lungs, nor did the sun burn my pasty skin. Quite the contrary in fact: I am told I wheeze much less when watching my soaps, and that raw chicken skin look I was going for seems to have been remedied (my Udon noodle shade of white is much more becoming).
Oh, did I mention that Veronique and I are now waiting for your patronage at our new Mont-Tremblant Altitude Sports? Well we are. Seriously. Come buy stuff. I’m nicer than I look, I swear. Ok, maybe not Monday mornings, so swing by Wednesday-ish. I’ll make you a coffee. Latte, not filter. Just off the 117 after the grocery stores.
Max is going to be mad if I don’t incorporate some outdoor epiphany I have recently had, so I will get to the point: I love water. Not playing with it, sillybilly, but drinking it! Read more Back to Basics
Big town kid, small town life
I can't imagine anything more amazing than a weekend in a small, picturesque town surrounded by tall, lush mountains, and that indistinguishable odour of 'non-city.' Mornings at the local bakery stuffing delicious pastries and coffee past your broad smile, waiting for the sun to warm enough for the inevitable discussion of what outdoor activity(ies) you and your buddies should partake in that day.
Hey,
A few readers have noticed that we were talking in our recent posts about a store opening in Mont-Tremblant. You wanted to know more about this store. Well here is the latest news regarding our new Concept stores by Altitude-sports.com opened since June 25th!
Hello world,
That's it. We had so many questions, requests and threats that we finally gave up.
"You should make your own t-shirts. They would be awesome."
"Do you have any Altitude t-shirts I could wear?"
"I will tattoo your logo on my chest if you don't send me an Altitude t-shirt now!!"
Our answer:
Well, we've done it. For the 2009 Montreal Outdoor Festival, we decided that we would all be wearing an Altitude Sports t-shirt. So far, the comments have been quite encouraging.
Alex L. and Mauricio, the happy hikers (sorry Alex..)
I know what you guys are thinking. The life of a retail assistant is pretty damn glamorous. Only a select few, with highly honed skills, can make a living doing this. And yes, the perks are unparalleled. All this is without a doubt true; however, for every Montreal there is a Toronto. Our days can be draining, stressful and even panicked, I assure you.
These adjectives are used in most cases when, out of the blue, your dreaded clichéd customer walks through the door. Usually you can discern a noticeable decrease in store temperature, the hairs on the back of your neck raise, and finally they make eye contact and approach.
The Crazy Customer:
CC: ...So as I was saying, these brown boots you have on the wall look an awful lot like the pair I was going to buy back in '73 when I was thinking about hiking the Australian Himalayas, but the brand name was spelled and pronounced differently.
Me: Pardon me sir, are you speaking to me? I don’t think we’ve met, are you certain you were talking to me? I believe the Himalayas are on the Asian continent if I am not mistaken.
