A shop runBy runners.

The plan was hatched on the May long weekend. We opened the doors on August 6th.

There wasn't a lot of runway. Getting brands on the wall took persistence, mostly because none of the ones we wanted had any idea who we were. So we called in every favour, leaned on every friend we'd made in the running world, and did our best to convince people that opening a trail running shop in Squamish was, in fact, a reasonable idea. A few of them believed us, and those first brands filled a shoe wall about a fifth the size of the one you'll see in the shop today.

What we lacked in footwear, we made up for in location. We chose the shop for one very important reason: it was spitting distance from a trailhead. You can leave the front door and be on dirt in roughly the amount of time it takes your watch to find a signal. We wanted the shop to be a place where people met, then headed outside and ran together. The community we hoped to build was always meant to extend well beyond the shop walls.

Our first 30x30 (30 minutes of running or walking every day in November) had 57 people in it, and we knew every name. Since then, we've had years when more than 3,000 people have taken part. We're doing our best with the names.

The shop grew too. When we opened, every shoe on the wall was a trail shoe. In 2019, we added road shoes, the shoe wall kept getting bigger, and more brands started taking our calls. More people started dropping in before runs, after runs, on their way to races, or just to talk about the thing they probably spend too much time thinking about: running.

We set out to open a trail running shop. What we ended up building was a community of people who like spending time in the mountains with family and friends, lining up for races, exploring somewhere new, running the roads when the mood strikes, and occasionally making questionable decisions about how far they're capable of going.

The shop has changed a lot since 2016. The job hasn't: help you find the right pair of shoes, keep your favourite trail snacks in stock, point you toward somewhere good to run this weekend, then send you out the door.