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Organizing your ski, surf, or golf trip will have never been easier! Contact Backside Tours to organise your trip now!
Every path in the road of life has a starting point. The story of Backside Tours starts in Switzerland.
During the winters of 1995-97, Tod Caton, the company founder, was employed at a ski and snowboard and shop in the heart of the Swiss Alps - called Backside. From this experience a concept was born - Backside Canada.
The business plan was completed in 1999, Backside Tours Inc. was incorporated in 2000 and operations began in 2001. The inaugural Backside Tours adventure to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort occurred over New Years 2001/02 and we're thrilled to be entering our tenth season of packaging and operating western Canada's best bus style ski and snowboard trips!
Backside Tours was born with a mandate to foster a culture based on passion for skiing and snowboarding.
In order to bring our vision to life, Backside needed a skilled manager to execute. Neall Alden moved into an Adventure Architect / General Manager role in 2004. Neall and Tod together realized that to be sustainable, there was a stated need to rewire the traditional party-focused ski trip habits born in the wild 80s. And, instead to encourage connection with the amazing gift of being able to ride the majestic mountains of Western Canada.
The first step was to hire the right people who shared the same passion for life and for riding as we do - from a grass roots approach. Our earliest guides were patrons that hand-picked us and made sure they were soon running buses! We are proud to say that our seventy or so Backside guides are some of the most positive and inspiring people we have ever met. We hope you'll agree!
The next step was to change the party-centric focus to an activity based experience. With bus games, funny videos and great movie options, our guides ensure our customers keep smiling all the way to the hill. That is not to say we're opposed to a good party - we just know we don't need to spearhead it! The theme of celebration is central on all our trips. But we just think moderation makes for more memory making opportunities!
With a fresh, organized and energetic approach to tour operations, Backside quickly became a favourite among the university crowds. With dynamic guides and entertaining activities, our university trips are our pride and joy - with hot springs visits, pub crawls, theme nights, convenient accommodations, student groups have gotten all they can handle. We continue to build solid relationships with university groups, and as our operations grow, we continue to recruit new guides from these schools.
On the corporate group side - our organizers and customers appreciate our many on-hill accommodation options and Backside's detailed approach to working with corporate groups.
But we are only as strong as the people we surround ourselves with and our corporate partners reputations speak volumes - Rossignol, Smith Optics, Helly Hansen, Icebreaker and Deuter as key partners.
Finally, how do we ensure you our patrons will be able to return to these resort destinations and be able to continue to create memories? With a commitment to our service providers whether riding on the bus, hanging out in our accommodations, or playing on the hill, we establish a relationship based on respect and ask that our patrons do the same. This way, we will always be welcome back to spend our time in the accommodations we most value and by traveling with the safest and most reliable charter coach operators.
With Backside's commitment to the environment and to learning more ways we can operate in a sustainable fashion, we are confident the respect for the extraordinary experience of our resort based group adventures will only grow making Backside even more sustainable.
For the 2010-11 season, Backside Tours is excited to be packaging more than ten-thousand days of ski and snowboard, golf and bike adventures for our groups. And, with our investment in new media and technology we're looking forward to making your job as organizer - ever easier!
The Backside office staff of Neall, Heather, Curtis, Roxanne and Tod - thank you for riding Backside.
