Built Outdoors | Wild Iris Mountain Sports
In 1989, famed professional rock climber, Todd Skinner, and his then-girlfriend, Amy Whistler, heard about the incredible dolomite cliffs near Lander, Wyoming, packed their bags, and moved immediately to Lander. In order to create jobs for themselves and other climbing partners, they created what came to be known as Wild Iris Mountain Sports, an outdoor gear store named after the climbing area that was holding their minds and hearts in Lander.
1991 when it was still Wind River Mountain Sports, according to the sign out front.
Since then, Wild Iris has seen challenges, changes, and growth, and through it all, it became more than your average outdoor gear shop in an incredibly beautiful place. It’s a pillar of the community, both in Lander and in the climbing world at large.
In this episode of Built Outdoors, we hear from co-owner Amy Skinner and manager Joan Chase, about their path to creating a community-centered, adventure-focused outdoor gear shop in small-town Wyoming, how they maintain their identity as a business, and what kind of culture they try to create for their employees.
Watch the Grand Opening video from an early location at 325 Main Street.
Connect with Wild Iris Mountains Sports:
Built Outdoors is created by Emily Holland and Kris Hampton for Plug Tone Outdoors.
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
Joan Chase 00:06
The mail every morning, gets dropped off. And then it goes to Amy's desk. And Amy received this handwritten manila envelope that said to Wild Iris 333 Main Street. We haven't been at 333 Main Street for nine years now. So shout out to our local mail system that got it to us because they knew where we were. We open it up. And inside of this manila envelope is a handwritten letter, a tag from a pair of gloves that we used to carry, and a pile of cash. I opened up the letter and it says, I stole this pair of gloves from you, when I was in a really bad place in my life. Here's the money. I'd like to pay for them. Anonymous.
Amy Skinner 00:55
That was amazing.
Joan Chase 00:57
Yeah. Amazing. What a testament to humanity, right? That they admitted they were at a bad place in their life. And they took care of us all these years later.
Kris Hampton 01:15
Welcome to Built Outdoors, where we talk with outdoor industry entrepreneurs about the ideas that became businesses and what they've learned along the way. I'm your host, Kris Hampton.
Kris Hampton 01:49
In 1989, author and historian Holly Skinner was prospecting for gold in the foothills of Wyoming's Wind River Mountains. On horseback high in the alpine, she came across the pocketed bone-white dolomite cliffs of Wild Iris. She immediately thought of her brother, famed professional rock climber Todd Skinner, and the photo she'd seen of him climbing in France. Once back to civilization, she called Todd, who was living with his then girlfriend, Amy Whistler, in a teepee in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Todd came over to take a look and sent word back to South Dakota telling Amy to pack up and head immediately to Wyoming.
Amy Skinner 02:34
When Todd and I arrived in Lander, there was a little store called Wind River Mountain Sports. And it was in John Howell's backyard. It was a little garden shed on Second Street. And John was selling the odd carabiner and maybe a rope. I can't really remember what he had. But somehow we got acquainted with John who's this awesome guy. And around the campfire it was like, 'Well, why don't you guys buy in?', and we did. And that's when the name became Wild Iris Mountain Sports named after the climbing area that was holding our hearts here.
Amy Skinner 03:20
I'm Amy Skinner, and I'm one of the owners at Wild Iris Mountain Sports.
Kris Hampton 03:29
At the time, Todd Skinner was one of the first sponsored climbers in the country, and one of the most famous climbers in the entire world. But in Wyoming, he was a Skinner. A legendary name across the state. The family had long run the Skinner Brothers Outdoor wilderness camps and Todd's dad, Bob, along with all five of his brothers had been inducted into the Wyoming Sports Hall of Fame. Fresh off a groundbreaking ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite with longtime partner Paul piano, Todd had not only the Skinner athletic genes, but the charisma, the larger than life storytelling ability and the belief that he could pull people together and make it work wherever he went.
Amy Skinner 04:12
Todd was the only person with a job. And he only kind of had a job. And the rest of our little crew were just climbing. And so eventually, we needed to find work to a sustainable way to stay in Lander. The very first location was a little garden shed in John Howell's backyard. And we were there maybe a month before we were able to rent a little tiny log house across from what is now the NOLS headquarters. At the time, I think it was Roper's Paint Store. I believe we rented that little house on the corner for $200 a month, including utilities. We totally started with almost none nothing. I kid you not. We had stock out of the back of Todd's truck. We had used 37 to 39 and a half Sportiva Megas. We had a pile of them because that was the sizes from me, Paul Todd, we had some North Face gear new and used, that The North Face had given and sold to Todd and Paul after the Salathe. We had a few Patagonia items from Frank Dussel shop down in Laramie, because he was closing that shop and sold us his leftovers. And truly, that was it. So we were there for, I believe we were there for close to a year. And we moved into 325 Main Street, which was huge compared to that little log house.
Joan Chase 06:00
There's this really great VHS video that Amy came across within the last few years, last year maybe. Amy's recording on camcorder, and she's walking into the grand opening at 325 main.
VHS Footage 06:14
Say hello! How are yah? Come on in. Welcome to Wild Iris. Look at all these chalk bags, ropes everywhere.
Joan Chase 06:29
And she's going on and on about looking at all the merchandise, we have so much stuff in here, there's so much merchandise. And now that merchandise could probably fit in our office.
Amy Skinner 06:40
Truly what we we built these little latticework triangles to take up floor space. So let that sink in for a second. Like we were looking for a way to display things. But we were also looking for a way to take up almost half the floor space so that it looked full. So I believe that was July 4 1992 that we moved into 325 Main Street, and we were there several years. I think it was 1998 that we moved a couple doors down to a store that was twice as big at 333 Main Street. To get to backstock we had to go out the back door, through the snow, to this leaky dark storage unit behind our our building. And so you know there was a headlamp hanging on the doorknob, if you had to go out for backstock it was a full expedition to put your coat and hat on and your headlamp to find your way through that. Much nicer now.
Joan Chase 07:58
When I first came to Lander in 2011, I knew I needed a map and you go into this little gear store. And then these people that you don't know are talking to you like they know you. And that immediately just I felt so drawn to the space
Joan Chase 08:19
I'm Joan Chase, and I am the manager at Wild Iris Mountain Sports. We moved into the new store in March of 2013.
Amy Skinner 08:28
166 Main Street, which is fabulous.
Joan Chase 08:31
And this is a testament to Jennifer Barrett and how incredible she is we were closed for one day, in between closing the old store and opening the new store, I believe. We have all these amazing pictures of racks of clothes just wrapped in packing paper and saran wrap getting wheeled down Main Street in Lander. And it was truly just like a community effort to get us moved that quickly. We have off street parking, we have office space, we have more floor space. And because of it, we're able to employ more people. We're able to employ people year round when you walk in the back room. It's this line, we have four desks in the back room. And I love it because it's like a community workspace back there. But we all just happen to work for the same place. And we have a basement. It's one of my favorite things. And I love telling locals that we have a basement because they're like, 'you have a basement? I had no idea you have a basement, what's in the basement?' And we have a basement full of really cool old display stuff that we've been collecting since 1990. And you know if you walk in Wild Iris and you go 'whoa, it looks different in here.' It's because Jennifer Barrett has been in there switching out racks and moving stuff around. And we have employee parking too which is like such an asset because I would say that we don't have parallel parkers on staff right now.
Kris Hampton 10:08
Through all of this growth, there were a lot of changes taking place behind the scenes. John Howell sold his stake in the business and tragically, in 2006 Todd Skinner died in a rappelling accident in Yosemite National Park. His death left the entire climbing community reeling. But the Lander community, particularly Amy, her kids, friends and family, were hit the hardest. Around this time, Jennifer Barrett came on as a partner, and became a central figure in shifting the store focus towards serving the entire community. Eventually, Amy and Jen would buy out the third partner, making wild Iris Mountain Sports and entirely woman-owned business.
Joan Chase 10:59
I wasn't here for the first few years of Wild Iris, but I know that our roots are so deeply in climbing. And then I think hand in hand you say, 'oh, I want to wind jacket, oh, I want to backpack.' And we evolved that way into serving so many people. And then it turned into 'oh, well, I want that cute sundress', and then all of a sudden Wild Iris is carrying sundresses and purses and these things. And then I think within the last few years, we've all kind of been like, 'what do we want to carry? Who do we want to be? Who do we want to represent? Who do we want to serve? And why are we here?'
Amy Skinner 11:36
When we started, it was growing our inventory was about what did Todd need for the next expedition? Or what did we want our personality to be? We'd sold Stetsons at one point at Wild Iris. And that was such a, an image thing for Todd. And so I think Joan is right. Talking about that kind of growth is how we developed from just having a few items of climbing gear, to branching out to our local folks, as well as our visiting climbers.
Joan Chase 12:17
I'm trying to think of an example. But I love when we have an item and everybody goes, Oh, I've never seen one of these in person. It's so cool that oh, the number six cam. I always think about the number six cam, because it's huge. And we're not a trad climbing community. But because we are a climbing store we feel it's so important that we have it in our store and I love when people walk in and they point at the huge green cam on the wall and they go 'whoa, I've never seen one in person. Can I touch it?'
Kris Hampton 12:47
Yes, yes, you can touch it. But you know where you can't Amazon, or any online retailer for that matter. More about that after this.
Emily Holland 13:09
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Kris Hampton 14:01
Lander, where Wild Iris Mountain Sports sits prominently on a classic but modernized Western Main Street, is a small town in Central Wyoming, population usually around 7500. That's often described as home to cowboys and climbers. Truth is tourism, mainly for outdoor recreation, is one of the primary economic drivers in Lander as well as in many towns just like this across the western United States. NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School, was founded in Lander in 1965 and still has a headquarters and campus here. According to the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Office, outdoor recreation accounts for 8% of total employment in Wyoming, which is the highest in the nation. Climbers show up in the summer for the cooler higher altitude sport climbing and many never leave. Walk into the Bake Shop on any summer morning and you'll likely find climbers searching Zillow for affordable houses. But still, there are far more people coming through town, in and out, than staying here. So how does a small town retail shop compete with the big online retailers?
Joan Chase 15:22
Prior to technology and easy online shopping, we said 'how do we become the gear store that people are familiar with from their own town but here in Lander?' It's so important to us to be that independent specialty retailer. And I was just training a new employee last week. And I asked them I said, like, 'Why do you think we're here? Like, why do you think wild Iris is here?' And they're like, 'oh, because you're a cool outdoor town.' It's like, but don't you think that anything we sell in store people could buy online? And they're like, 'yeah, but you get to talk to people.' When I said, 'yes, that was the answer I was fishing for from you.' Because I think that we wanted to create the store, prior to online shopping that everybody was familiar with and had this really great selection. But then all of a sudden, people can buy anything online, what makes us special? Is it our selection? Yes? Is it that we have that item that people have never actually seen in store in person before? And they ask, 'can I touch that?' Yes. And you can talk to people who are using all of those things. And I think we're coming back to what makes us unique. And what makes us unique is the stories that we have that attach us to the inventory we sell.
Amy Skinner 16:35
Joan is so good at that. She truly when she is interviewing new prospective employees, she is looking for their wealth of information, either locally or in a specific part of our store, you know, are they backpackers? Are they climbers? Do they know about Leave No Trace? All those things are really important to Joan, I believe, as she hires these people, and then she gives them opportunities to grow in our specific area. If they're not from Lander, she gives them the opportunity to talk to people who are and get them out the door to see these places so that they can talk to our customer.
Joan Chase 17:22
Right, like the perfect employee, they already know about our local area. And they're good at customer service. But since we have this history, and we do attract this clientele, it's like the climbers, the hikers who moved to town and need a place to land and we still serve that purpose in our town today. A lot of times I get the people who have customer service, but they don't know about the local area. And so I, their very first day on the job, I refuse to schedule anybody for more than four hours, because they have to listen to me talk for that entire four hours. And I give them a tour of the store. And I'm like, great. We have a basement. They're like 'you have a basement?' like 'yeah, we have a basement.' And then I start talking to them about the local area. So from their very first moments in the store, we are looking at maps, we are talking about the names of local crags and trailheads. And I can't take full credit because everybody on staff contributes these things. I just count on that organically while they're on the sales floor with their co-workers that they're going to ask their co-workers, 'what did you do last night?' 'Oh, I went climbing,' 'oh, where can you go climbing on an evening in Lander?'
Amy Skinner 18:40
I don't work out on the floor anymore. And when you work in a bigger store, you have your department and you know that in and out. Our floor staff are so knowledgeable in everything from freeze dried food to cams to sportswear. Like they have to know it all. And I, my hat is off to them every day because it's a huge job.
Joan Chase 19:05
Other businesses might say yeah, the sales floor staff, that's all they have to do is work the sales floor. But that's so untrue. They are our people people. They are helping us manage inventory on a daily basis. And they have to know our inventory so intimately.
Amy Skinner 19:24
No one hesitates to say, 'hey, I don't know as much about this particular product as this person does. Let's go talk to them about it.' No one's ego is involved in that that I see.
Joan Chase 19:38
It does not matter if you've been owner for 32 years, or if you've been working there for five days. That willingness and ability to say 'I don't know, can you help me?' And not feeling like you're a burden to anybody for asking for help. Amy sets this example. Jennifer sets this example of just saying 'can you help me? What do you think?' Having that open dialogue with each other.
Kris Hampton 20:10
Each year, Lander hosts the International Climbers Festival, the longest running climbing festival in the US, also started by Amy and Todd and crew. An economic impact study in 2021, found that climbers attending the festival brought in nearly $150,000 over that weekend, and supported $45,000 in local wages. Basically, here in small town, Wyoming, climbing is big business. And look, I'm a climber. I run a business in the climbing industry, I know how hard it can be to employ people who want to be transient, who want to chase the good seasons who want to cherry pick the days that they go outdoors, which of course, in turn, means that they want to cherry pick the days that they work.
Amy Skinner 21:08
Initially, it was just me, and Holly Skinner, Todd's sister, and we needed a job so that we could stay in Lander. But really soon, it became apparent that we needed climbing partners. And so we wanted to start hiring people to work at the store, because we could be very flexible. We were kind of building the machine that was building Wild Iris, the crag and the store. 'Oh, it's your rest day from climbing? Well, why don't you cover this shift? So that Steve can go out and work on his project he's gonna give it a try today.' And that worked really well. For a long time.
Joan Chase 21:57
I always asked do you prefer to have your days off consecutive, or split. And if they're a climber, they almost always say split because they want to climb a few days and then have a rest day. And if they're a hiker, they always say consecutive. We're so lucky that we have had very little turnover in the past few years, which I know is the opposite of what we're hearing from the workforce everywhere else. But I think it's a testament to Wild Iris and the culture that Amy and Jennifer have built, that people actually want to work at Wild Iris and actually want to be in Lander. I really strive to make it so that people can work at the shop. And if they want to hold another job and just have Wild Iris be their side gig. Or if they want it to be their full time or if they want to go traveling in the wintertime that we can make those things work for people.
Amy Skinner 22:50
It occurred to me this morning that most of the people that I work with on a daily basis, were not yet born, when we opened the doors at Wild Iris. And I feel so fortunate to be excited to go to work. Every day I get to sit between the Austin and Jake. And they're enthusiastic, and they're knowledgeable. And they're fun to be with. You know, our youngest member of the team now has Sam Bechtel, 14 years old. And what I get from Sam, whose dad was one of the early, early employees that while there is what I get from Sam is this youthful exuberance. He comes through the back room when we're all staring at the screens and he's whistling or singing. Some of our employees in the early years were Steve Bechtel, Mike Lilygren. You know, later on Jenna Ackerman. These are leaders in our community now with their own businesses. We've had people come through and work for us for a summer before they were going off to med school and their doctors in our community now and teachers. I mean, these people would have done cool things anyway. But I like to think that Wild Iris contributed just a little bit to their sense of community, then I'm really proud of that.
Kris Hampton 24:18
We'll be right back with a typical day a Wild Iris Mountain Sports, as well as some of the other challenges of being in business in a small mountain town.
Kris Hampton 24:44
So, what is the Plug Tone Audio Collective? Well, first and foremost, we're a diverse group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry. We're a network of creative, passionate, forward-thinking people who believe in the transformative have power of storytelling and service to our communities through podcasting, climbing, hiking, skiing, mountain biking, and expanding outward. We're here to offer effective advice, ask great questions, and tell the stories that aren't being told. You can listen, follow along and learn more about us and our shows on Instagram at Plug Tone Audio, or on our website at plugtoneaudio.com. And please subscribe to the show, give us a rating, leave us a review, and share this episode with a friend. It really helps.
Joan Chase 25:58
I love to get to the shop early, when all the lights are off, and it's quiet. And I walk around the store. And I look at what we have. And I go, 'wow, it looks so great in here.' I can tell what season we're in just based off of what the sales floor feels like. And I love those quiet moments before we open, they're really important for me to kind of get some of my personal things out of the way so that when our coworkers start to show up, we can focus on the day. What can we get done before our doors open, because as soon as we open the doors, before we open the doors, there's people pulling on the doors almost every day. So we have about a half an hour of tasks and catching up on life with each other, vacuum and we begin counting the drawer. And then we decide if we need to take a walk down the street and go visit our friends at the bank. We have a physical checklist of chores that we do every single day. It's everything tidy, can we bring more up from the basement, and then we open the doors. And most days, it's go go go. And everybody who works the sales floor is responsible for everything. We don't have people who only stand at the climbing counter and only stand at the register. So I love the flow state when everybody's just kind of weaving in and out and checking on all these customers.
Wild Iris Customer 27:24
Yeah, and I was smart. I came in here yesterday.
Wild Iris Employee 27:28
Oh, and scoped it out. Yup.
Wild Iris Customer 27:29
Because I knew how busy you are going to be today.
Wild Iris Employee 27:32
Yep.
Wild Iris Customer 27:33
'Cause I'm a local yokel. And I know how this works.
Wild Iris Employee 27:40
Would you like a bag?
Wild Iris Customer 27:42
No, you can save your bag.
Wild Iris Employee 27:44
Okay.
Joan Chase 27:45
It's never, 'that's my customer. And that's your customer.' They're everybody's.
Wild Iris Employee 27:49
And since you don't need a bag, would you mind donating to one of our nonprofits?
Wild Iris Customer 27:53
I would love to donate.
Wild Iris Employee 28:01
There you go.
Wild Iris Customer 28:02
That's cool. Thank you. You have a safe, good climber's festival.
Wild Iris Employee 28:05
You too, have a great rest of your day.
Joan Chase 28:08
We're so adamant, everybody gets a full lunch. I don't care how busy they are. There's nothing happening that we can't make sure people eat. Because everybody's happier for it. We fend off the hanger on a daily basis. On any given day, we, there's somebody fitting climbing shoes, and then they're talking about sundresses a moment later. And then they're pointing over a map with somebody and ringing somebody up in between. And then at the end of the day in the summertime, we lock the doors and go home. And we try to get out there as quick as possible. Because there's still four hours of daylight and we want people to go play.
Amy Skinner 29:14
I am usually just chatting with people. I'm so fortunate because I've got Joan and Austin and Jake and Jennifer. They're doing all the hard work and allowing me to visit with people who have built our community who have are so excited about visiting. I mean, that's basically my whole job these days.
Joan Chase 29:37
One of my favorite things is when a customer walks in the store, and they look right at Amy and they go 'Amy Whistler,' and she stares at them and then she goes, 'Oh my God. I haven't seen you.' And that happens on a daily basis. Because Amy has been such an iconic presence at the business for our whole 32 years, and it is amazing to see those relationships happen. You know, we're go go go on the sales floor during the summer months. But Amy is go, go go go all the time, and especially the nine months of winter, because Amy manages our entire back room. So Amy's the one sitting at a desk back there, welcoming UPS and FedEx when they come and drop off giant boxes of stuff. She's the one that cuts open the boxes and receives that merchandise into our inventory, prints the tags and gets the sales floor staff all set up to get the new merchandise out on the sales floor. She's the one that handles when I mess up my orders. And I have to send lots of things back to the companies. She's the one who handles all of our customer service, including warranties and returns. And she handles our events. So by saying that she just gets to visit with people. Yeah, but that comes from nine months of incredible legwork to set us up so that we can all embrace that visiting with people. It's like, I think if she's stepped back and could see it from my view and say, 'Wow, she really knows this business in such an intimate way, because she knows everything about this business, and also has the skill to go and visit with those people on top of that.'
Amy Skinner 31:29
I still suffer from impostor syndrome a lot, because, it's a good thing, because I've been able to surround myself with people who are really good at their jobs. You know, Jennifer Barrett, I credit with keeping me and my family alive for a really long time, because she totally took this scrappy little business and built it into something that is sustainable and profitable and forward thinking. Around the year 2000, early 2000s is when Wild Iris really became this foundational part of the Lander community. Jennifer Barrett and Emily Tilden did that by starting to do fundraisers for local nonprofit organizations. And that has continued today through even through the COVID years, we we did our best to keep that effort going. And during COVID, when we first decided to shut the doors, we were kind of flooded with local calls saying 'how can we help Wild Iris get through this time? We don't want you to go away, you're really important to us.'
Kris Hampton 32:53
No matter whether you live in a small town or a big city, when another business opens that's similar to yours. It's going to impact your business. That's not to say that it's always a negative impact. But in a tiny ecosystem, like Lander, Wyoming, it's certainly easy to think that. Wild Iris isn't the only game in town. So how do several locally owned outdoor focused retailers coexist in such a small place?
Joan Chase 33:25
So we're really good at what we do. And we want to stay that way. We're in a small town like, yeah, in the summertime, we see a lot of tourist traffic. But then we go back to wintertime. And here we are in our small town. How do we make sure that everybody in our community is getting what they need, we'll be really good at this one thing. And they can be really good at this one thing, and they over here can be really good at this one thing. So making sure that within our community, we have all of our bases covered. And there's really great options, but that we're respecting who's good at what. We're a small town and we know other business owners and why don't we band together and Thomas at Gannett Peak Sports I feel like we have a really awesome dialogue with him right now where they moved into a bigger space a couple of years ago, they started carrying ski things. We don't carry ski things, but we've been able to converse about where our brands overlap where our product overlaps. And it feels amazing to have that alliance and that partnership in our small town. Just a block and a half away from each other.
Amy Skinner 34:33
We just had our whole parking lot full for July 4 for the Challenge for Charities packet pickup. And our neighbor at Power Sports said 'absolutely use my parking spaces. Not a problem.' You know on the other side, at the Cowfish and Gannett Grill those guys always contribute to our fundraisers. Their people park in our backspace at night, when they're working, and our people of course have it during the day, but there's just so much give and take with our neighbors.
Joan Chase 35:07
We have the best neighborhood in all of Lander right there on Main Street. Truly.
Amy Skinner 35:12
Yep.
Joan Chase 35:13
And we do talk about how fortunate we are and how amazing our space is, but that we believe that we can create those micro communities anywhere in Lander. You don't have to have the Main Street 100 block address to become a part of the community.
Amy Skinner 35:33
And I would like to say a huge part of our culture at Wild Iris is that welcoming atmosphere that we have and the willingness and desire to welcome new people to our community and to our crags and to our rivers. That comes directly from Todd. He, he wasn't actually in the store very often. But when he was he used his gift to welcome people.
Kris Hampton 36:06
Talk to anyone who met Todd Skinner, either at the crag in Wyoming or out on his travels. And they all say the same thing. That he instantly made them feel welcome, like family. And that's part of why Wild Iris is so much more than just a store.
Joan Chase 36:26
Last year, I lost my dad super unexpectedly. And I was in a really sad place in my life. And I was lost. And I am the manager, I'm responsible for a dozen or more people up in this building. And I look to these people who depend on me for their schedules and their responsibilities and all these things. And I said, 'I don't know what to do.' And they said, 'great, let us do it.' And they just lifted me up and supported me. The day before the Fourth of July, super busy day, we're hosting the Challenge for Charities raise packet pickup, crazy day at the shop. And I'm sending everybody for lunch and Amy looks at me and goes, 'have you eaten today?' And I said 'well, everybody else is going to eat and then I'm going to eat' she goes 'remember, you have to put your oxygen mask on before helping others.' I wanted so badly to be this amazing support system for my team last summer and I couldn't do it. And they flipped that switch on me. And they took care of me all year last year. My only job was to be a leader to lead the team. And I couldn't do it. And my team led me. They held my hand. They picked me up. They supported me and to work for a place that every single person just said 'what can we do for you?' is wow, life changing, humbling, can make me cry every single day because I am so thankful for it.
Kris Hampton 38:12
Big thanks to both Amy and Joan, not only for their time during this project, but also for being leaders in this community that I call home. Also, thanks to the crew Wild Iris for letting me follow them around with a microphone, particularly on a couple of the busiest days of the year. At wildirisclimbing.com you'll find updates on conditions for local crags, info on hiking around Lander and in the Wind River Mountains, the best local fishing spots and so much more. You can follow them on Instagram where their account is run by the store employees who have a ton of fun with it. And of course, if you're coming into town stop in at 166 main street and say hello. If you'd like to see some of the photos of racks being wheeled down Main Street or more from Amy's video, the grand opening a few locations ago complete with a Todd Skinner welcome at the front door. You can find that on our Instagram. The link to that and everything else is right there in your show notes. Built Outdoors is created by Emily Holland and me, Kris Hampton, for Plug Tone Audio and it's a proud member of the Plug Tone Audio Collective, a diverse group of the best, most impactful podcasts in the outdoor industry. You can find full transcripts and more information about Plug Tone at plugtoneaudio.com.
