Want exclusive après party insights? Want to hear the latest from your favorite resorts and brands? During our Q&A series you will hear from resort experts, brand leaders, and après aficionados! This week we caught up with Cristina Ashbaugh, the co-founder of Yardsale, the company on a mission to make ski poles exciting.
In November 2023 Cristina Ashbaugh and her co-founder Kelly McGee launched the Yardsale ski pole. Just one product on a mission to make recreational skiers’ time on the mountain more enjoyable. The Yardsale ski pole is sleek, durable, and offers something new to a piece of gear that often gets overlooked.
Their innovative ski poles feature magnetic hand grips making them easy to carry and transport. They come in a variety of fun colors and skiers have the choice to customize them mixing and matching to have different color hand grips, poles, baskets and even the straps!
Yardsale has been growing rapidly, they even attracted the attention of Shark Tank and made a deal with Shark Kendra Scott! This season they added 3 new products to their collection, a backcountry ski pole, kids ski pole, and a day bag. But this is just the beginning, co-founder Cristina told us.
How long have you been skiing?
I grew up skiing, I probably started to learn when I was 3. But in high school and college I was just a fine skier, I didn’t get to go very often. It was after college when I started taking it more seriously and tried to focus on skills and I got a lot better.
What is your favorite place you have ever skied?
I have to say Big Sky. We go every year, I think its unbeatable!
What is your go-to drink at après?
I love hot chocolate most days. Its rarely on the menu but I love orange wine and will order that if I see it!
Best après party you’ve ever been to?
Going home and having our own cozy apres with friends is my favorite. But if we are staying on the mountain Chamois at Palisades is definitely my favorite. Especially when its warm during spring skiing.
Any bucket list ski destination you haven’t gotten to yet?
Chamonix! I’ve been there in the summer but have never gotten to ski there and I feel like I would love it.
What motivated you and Kelly to get into ski poles vs all the other ski gear out there?
After college when I was buying my first adult ski setup, I was making a significant investment in gear and I was choosing skis, boots, everything very carefully. But when it came time for poles, I was just directed to the back corner of the store to grab whatever. I ended up skiing with those poles for a fear years, they weren’t the right size, I hated the way they looked. Kelly and I both agreed skiers spend so much on their gear but there’s never been something exciting to buy in the ski pole category. Especially for recreational skiers. There are of course fancy poles for competitive skiers, professionals, “hardos”. But we wanted to create something for skiers like us.
What makes a Yardsale ski pole special?
Carrying poles was always annoying, whenever I had to carry my skis, poles, bag etc. from the parking lot to the lodge then back to the car it was always a disaster. So I thought, why not just put some magnets in there? Kelly and I did some research and nobody had ever done it! We talked to everyone we knew who skied, people with a wide range of ability, beginners, advanced, and realized this wasn’t a horrible idea. When we asked our friends most of them didn’t even know what brand of ski poles they were currently using. We recognized the opportunity to create a better product and build a brand around that product.
What can you tell us about the Yardsale guarantee?
If you look around any resort you’ll see bent poles all over the place. So one thing we wanted to build into this product was a lifetime guarantee but we wanted to make it so if you bend or break a pole you don’t need to throw the entire product out. Our pole is modular so you can just remove the handle, remove the baskets and then we can just replace the shaft for free which helps us cut down on plastic waste.
Have you had many poles break since launch?
In our season and a half, we have had maybe 6 people actually break a pole and the stories are pretty gnarly! The Yardsale ski pole is hard to break or bend, they’re really durable but I think the Yardsale guarantee is a good selling point. People want to invest in something that they know will last and we have a great solution for when someone does manage to bend or break a pole.
Yardsale is a term skiers use to describe a wipe out so epic your gear goes flying all over that mountain. What made you guys choose that as the name?
It actually wasn’t originally the name we came up with, but I think it has become a big part of the brand, people like it. It is kind of a, if you know you know, type of name. The name was a big sticking point when we were on Shark Tank.
What is one thing you want people to know about Yardsale?
While we do take performance seriously and we rigorously test our products, we are really geared towards the recreational skier. So many legacy brands selling ski gear, their marketing is always showing people jumping off cliffs and doing all this crazy stuff, amazing stuff, but not things the average recreational skier is doing. We love ski weekends, we’re there to have a good time with friends, family, and spend time in nature. That is something we try to make come through in our marketing. Its approachable, friendly and a bit playful.
We have received a lot of attention from really intense skiers, “hardos”, who can be extremely critical, they over analyze, and complain about how Yardsale ski poles weigh 10 grams more than a traditional pole because of the magnets. Which is something our recreational customer won’t notice and some actually like because it feels more substantial in their hand. We’re not for everyone and that is okay, we’re building something different and our customers really love the product and resonate with the brand.
Anything new and exciting coming up this season?
Yes, this year we expanded our pole selection and we launched our first non-pole product, the Day Bag. It is a purpose-built bag for your ski day, it has compartments for your helmet, your goggles, even your laptop if you want to work from the lodge. And right now, the Day Bag is 20% off until February 14, 2025, no code needed. We’re planning to continue to expand, I’d love to do a ski bag someday in the future.
Like Yardsale we love to embrace the fun recreational side of skiing. Whether you ski 100 days a season or you just do one or two weekends a year there is space for you in this sport! We love the approachable playful vibe of Yardsale. Be sure to follow Yardsale’s journey on TikTok and Instagram. Huge thank you to Cristina for sitting down with us!
Are you making a difference in the ski industry? Do you host fun and exciting events for skiers and snowboarders? Want to share what makes your resort special? Reach out to us at editor@apreschronicles.com to be featured in our Q&A series.
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
