Living on the Edge: a Q&A With BCA’s Bruce Edgerly

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In the mid 1990s, a scrappy upstart brand launched a couple of key products that helped open the doors for aspiring backcountry freeskiers. For those ready to leave the comfy confines of ski resorts, a new set of backcountry safety equipment was necessary, and the company they turned to for their needs was Backcountry Access (BCA). Stationed on the front line of that freeski movement was BCA co-founder Bruce “Edge” Edgerly, creatively leveraging his wide-ranging skillset to equip those powder-hungry shredders with the proper knowledge and gear to navigate the backcountry safely. Now, thirty years later, skiing with an avalanche beacon is a regular occurrence for thousands of skiers each day, and Edge finds himself continuing down the familiar powdery pathway he’s traveled for decades. We caught up with him to relive the early years, and see where that path is leading him now.

For those who may not know, what is your history with Backcountry Access? What’s your current role?

Edge: I started the company in May of 1994 with Bruce “Bruno” McGowan, in his garage. His role was operations and mine was sales and marketing. He got the goods in the door and I got them out the door. As we grew, I took on the official title of VP of Sales and Marketing. Eventually I passed along the sales duties and focused on just the marketing side. In December 2012, we finalized a deal to sell BCA to K2’s parent company. Although we were under new ownership, I continued working in the same capacity until 2023, that’s when I passed along the majority of the marketing duties and became the brand’s lead ambassador. I’m still involved in some product development, but my main role is to lead our education program, which has always been a huge part of BCA’s culture.

Take us back in time a little bit. What was the state of skiing, and how did the backcountry fit into the mix when BCA got its start? How did that landscape affect BCA's initial product offerings?

Edge: It seems like it was the Stone Age when I look back to when we first got started, but telemarking was the only mode of backcountry skiing in the U.S. Our first product, the Alpine Trekker, was a direct challenge to tele-ing. It was a binding adaptor that enabled aggressive downhill skiers to use their alpine gear to ski in the backcountry (precursor to the present-day Daymaker). Our tagline was “High-performance backcountry skiing”. The Trekkers turned into kind of a gateway drug for people that eventually purchased real Alpine Touring bindings when they became available. Our next product was the Tracker DTS, which was the industry’s first digital avalanche transceiver. It was also targeted at advanced riders just getting into the backcountry. At this point in time, Jackson Hole was opening their backcountry gates, and “sidecountry” skiing was becoming a legit market. We specifically targeted the embryonic freeskiing movement and took part in the original organizational meetings for IFSA. (BCA still sponsors freeride comps to this day.) We feel like we came of age with the freeskiing movement and played a part in its enormous rise in popularity. We also played a part in the growth of avalanche education in North America, not just through our product lineup, but through our heavy safety messaging, our partnerships, and our network of BCA Beacon Training Parks.

Avalanche safety equipment has its roots in Europe. What type of challenges did you face as an upstart American brand breaking into the industry?

Edge: Frankly, it was brutal. And so was Canada. The Canadian market was heavily influenced by fossilized European guides, thanks to their massive heliskiing industry. It took nearly three years of hand-to-hand combat to get in the door outside the U.S. The crux in Europe and Canada was to find a few diehard Tracker evangelists who were willing to knock on the doors of key opinion leaders and force them to do beacon searches with us. In Canada, mountain snowmobiling was starting to go off. Sledders are extremely practical and have no European brand loyalty, so they adopted the Tracker almost immediately. We will forever be indebted to our workhorse Austrian distributor, Franz Hohensinn, and our Canadian sled reps, Dwayne and Deb Paynton. True guerrillas!

After spending decades in the ski industry, what are the biggest advancements you’ve seen (other than BCA products)?

Edge: The development of lightweight alpine touring and splitboard gear has been awesome to experience. I’m also blown away by the navigation apps like Gaia, OnX, and CalTopo. The features they keep rolling out blow my mind. I’ve thrown my compass out with my tele gear, haha.

Operating a large international brand takes a lot of time and energy. Since you’ve taken a step back, what have you been doing to stay busy?

Edge: Up until recently, I’ve been skiing my ass off. I spent ten days in Japan, went on a hut trip in B.C., took a trip to Norway, and did a ton of touring and resort skiing around my home turf, A-Basin. I also took an instructor training course and a Wilderness First Responder class so I can start teaching avalanche courses next season. Also, we built a house in Carbondale, so hopefully I’ll be skiing Aspen and Marble a lot this coming season.

What has been the most rewarding part of your [EDGE]ucation series?

Edge: It’s nice to be able to focus on the things that really matter and make a difference in peoples’ lives, instead of constantly chasing deadlines and sales numbers. People have approached me in some random places and said things like, “Thanks for helping keep us safe.” That’s really rewarding. But the best part of my job is when I get emails thanking us for helping save someone’s life. That’s what keeps me in the industry.

Check out some of BCA's [EDGE]ucation series here on Powder.

You have a massive amount of experience traveling in the backcountry. What’s the top lesson you’d like to pass on to skiers who venture beyond the ropes?

Edge: Bring enough in your pack so you can handle a night out if someone gets injured. Carry a satellite messenger and keep it in arm’s reach in case you can’t access your pack. Thankfully, I’ve never had to use mine, but I’ve heard enough stories to make sure that I’ll never leave home without it. Finally, if the dynamics are weird in the group and you don’t have the same mindset as others, don’t hesitate to go to Plan B.

You have been lucky enough to travel the world in the name of skiing and have met countless individuals across the globe. As you reflect back, which destinations and people standout the most?

Edge: In the mid-90s I left a promising engineering career to cover the budding “extreme skiing” tour for Powder Magazine. During those years I rode with legendary freeskiing pioneers when they were just getting started, guys like Doug Coombs, Dean Cummings, Jim Conway, Chris Davenport, Dave Swanwick, Shane McConkey, and Kent Kreitler. (I did that at the same time I was pimping Trekkers and Trackers.) The first few trips I took to Valdez were big eye-openers for me. I even had the opportunity to forerun the 1994 World Extremes with Tommy Moe. The connections I made during those years have lasted a lifetime and continue to inspire me.