Snoqualmie, WA October 19, 2011 – Karakoram has been honored as a recipient of a 2011 Backpacker magazine Editors’ Choice Snow Award, the most prestigious award in the outdoor industry, given annually to products in recognition of their outstanding innovation in design, materials and/or performance.

Backpacker Editor-In-ChiefJonathan Dorn and his staff of editors and testers presented the Karakoram Split30 Splitboard System with the award at the annual Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday, August 4, 2011.

In total, nine manufacturers were honored as recipients of the first-ever Editors’ Choice Snow Award.  Using the same rigorous gear testing practices as the annual Editors’ Choice Awards announced in the spring, the Editors’ Choice Snow Awards are a prestigious honor in the outdoor industry, given to cold-weather season products in recognition of their outstanding innovation in design, materials and performance.

Backpacker Editor-In-Chief,Jonathan Dorn and his staff formally presented the awards on August 4th, the first morning of the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market inSalt Lake City. This year’s winners include:  Soto’s Muka Liquid Fuel Stove; Outdoor Research’s Sensor Gloves; La Sportiva’s GT Ski and RT Bindings; Dynafit’s TLT5 Mountain Boot; Beyond’s RoughRider Pants; Mammut’s Felstrum Half-Zip Jacket; Therm-a-Rest’s NeoAir All Season; Adidas’ Terrex Conrax CP; and Karakoram’s Split 30 Bindings.

“There’s no other magazine or website that conducts in-depth field-testing as vigorously or impartially as the crew led by Gear EditorKristin Hostetter,” says Backpacker Editor-in-Chief Jon Dorn. “With a core team that has several centuries of combined trail time and expertise in every backcountry discipline, Kristin puts products through an unprecedented level of real-world abuse in every terrain and weather imaginable, including snow and ice.  Because of that, extending the coveted Editors’ Choice Awards to account for the winter season allows us to lead consumers to even more products that show best-in-class performance.”

“We’re thrilled to be honored along side companies like Dynafit and La Sportiva, and to be the only splitboard related product to receive ‘Best in Snow,'” says Bryce Kloster co-owner and co-creator of Karakoram.  “We’ve always had confidence that we designed a quality product, so to get this kind of recognition is real validation of the effort and passion that was put into our Split30 Splitboard System.”

The Backpacker Editors’ Choice Snow Awards are the seal of approval.   All winners must excel under extensive field-testing conducted by Backpacker’s team of editors, who take hundreds of new products every year into the backcountry to put them to the test.  This rigorous process ensures that the performance of the winners is truly worthy of distinction and meets the guiding principle behind the program: gear that is of real value to the readers of Backpacker magazine, who are very active, long-term outdoor enthusiasts.

About Backpacker:

Backpacker (www.backpacker.com) brings the outdoors straight to the reader’s doorstep, inspiring and enabling them to go more places and enjoy nature more often. The authority on active adventure, Backpacker is the world’s first GPS-enabled magazine and website, and the only outdoor media whose editors personally test the hiking trails, camping gear, and survival tips they publish. Backpacker’s Editors’ Choice Awards, an industry honor recognizing design, feature and product innovation has become the gold standard against which all other outdoor-industry awards are measured. And the magazine recently launched mobile media applications that allow users to text-message hiking maps and directions to their phones. In the last four years, Backpacker has won five National Magazine Awards, the publishing industry’s highest honor. In 2008, the magazine won the NMA for General Excellence, joining The New Yorker, Mother Jones, GQ, and National Geographic as top winners in their respective size categories. In 2009, it won three awards, including General Excellence Online. Backpacker has also won numerous other print, design, and digital awards, and its writers have been recognized in prestigious contests and best-of-the-year anthologies.