Our Story

 Reinventing The Ski Club Experience

What's old is new and the idea that spurred the reinvention of the classic ski club concept for the digital age. Does anyone start ski clubs anymore? Is it a concept that even exists outside of the youth ski racing clubs? It's a question we asked and before we could decide for certain, the ADL became the answer.

It's fair to say the ADL evolved into a club, rather than started. The idea was hatched when a few fathers got together on weekends to take their kids skiing together, in a large neighborhood posse. We made the kids wax and scrape their own skis in the garage on Friday nights. Mostly, so the dad's could drink beers and tell war stories and off-color jokes. The garage would later become the club headquarters, tuning and board room. We would hit the local Seattle resorts on Saturdays and the kids would follow each other fearlessly down gate 4 at Crystal and anywhere else the fathers wanted to ski. Fearing only being left behind, they advanced quickly.

We live in a neighborhood high on a hill above Lake Sammamish, called Lakemont. The road up is long and steep and we called it Alp du Lakemont as an ode to the Tour de France, inspiring us when we attacked the climb on our bicycles during the summer months. The name stuck and we started referring to our weekend ski adventures as the Alp du Lakemont Ski Club outings. There was nothing official about it until we had an ADL sticker made - the first black and white ADL oval created a monster.

That oval sticker gained popularity and spawned a second. We started playing Nageln in our secret hut in the Cascade Mountains and on Thursday nights after our City League races. Inspired by the Raifiessen Bank logo, that adorns the best male and female Austrian racers helmets, we changed the horses to hammers to symbolize our strong bonds and dedication to the SchlagenHammer :). That sticker had a life of its own and spread while perking interest in this now unofficial club of sorts. Our founder, Kyle Watson was already deeply involved in the creation of EvoTrips with local ski store evo.com. After that successful endeavor, he felt it was the right time to create something new, different and unique in the ski and travel space for a bit older audience that still likes to shred. We also like to celebrate the retro/classic race heritage of skiings golden era in the 60s through early 80s. The ADL was the chosen vehicle for just such a journey.

Please join us and always remember.... Après is an attitude.