Ads past: Raichle Flexon 5

This ad from the September 1980 issue of SKI introduces the Raichle Flexon, still in production today as K2’s Full Tilt ski boot. Flexon development began in 1978 when Sven Coomer, the premier ski-boot designer of his generation, improved his own Nordica Comp III design by placing a springy, ribbed-nylon tongue inside the boot shell. He showed this idea to the product-development company Comfort Products in Aspen; they then revised it to put the nylon tongue on the outside and licensed the prototype to Raichle-Molitor in Switzerland. Raichle added cable buckles, derived from Karl Molitor’s cable-wrap system for his 1960s-era leather boots. Introduced for the 1980–81 season, the Flexon was quickly adopted by freestyle skiers. After Bill Johnson used the boot during his spectacular 1984 World Cup downhill season, which included a gold medal at the Sarajevo Olympics, Raichle sold 400,000 pairs annually and had to build a larger factory. After the company’s new owner, Peter Werhan, died in a highway accident, mismanagement led to several more ownership changes and the disappearance of the Raichle brand from skiing around 1999. K2 bought the original Flexon molds in 2004, and the American company resumed production of the boot, under the Full Tilt label, in 2006. —Seth Masia

Underground Alta
A backhoe operator installing reservoir pipeline recently unearthed the story of a thriving mining town in the late 1800s. Writer Bianca Dumas digs into the discovery.

Breckenridge’s Peak 7 Avalanche
A 1987 slide killed four young skiers and triggered a white-hot debate on resort boundaries, personal responsibility and acceptable risks.