How’d you get started in the outdoors?

Kristina was probably the most naturally drawn to the outdoors, having grown up in the Colorado mountains. She walked out her front door to vistas and trails. She has been a hiker and a backpacker for most of her life.

Jason was drawn to the outdoors through a combination of influences. He began dating Kristina shortly after he blew out his right knee for the second (of three) times, thus ending his soccer playing days. Seeking a way to push himself physically as well as bond with his future wife, moving into the outdoors was a natural choice.

The two of them began to tackle summits in order to support Jason’s father in his attempt to summit Longs Peak, an iconic mountain in Colorado which he attempted in his early twenties only to be weathered off due to lightning. Once he was in his early sixties, Jason’s Dad, Jason, and Kristina began to learn and train to make that summit - which they did.

This lead Jason and Kristina, now married, from summits into “scrambles,” then to technical climbing, and finally to high altitude summits above 19,000’.

Connor and Kade simply grew up climbing - up stacks of books, chair ladders they constructed as toddlers, anything and everything they could use to move upwards in the house. And they also grew up around climbing. Seeing photos and hearing stories of days in the outdoors were part of their day-to-day existences. They began setting their own climbing goals as early as age three.

How did you go about increasing your outdoor skills and knowledge?

Kristina sought out finding formal training for herself and Jason through guide services and the Colorado Mountain Club’s technical education schools, ranging from trekking and backpacking to technical rock climbing and high altitude expeditions. Of course, these experiences lead Jason and Kristina into the alpinist community, which resulted in a number of mentorships. Eventually, Jason became a Senior Instructor and School Director at the Colorado Mountain Club, helping design and deliver curricula for outdoors skills and education. Finally, as Jason was beginning to contemplate his first Himalayan trip, he worked one-on-one with a guide for almost two years to ensure his knowledge and skills were up to date and highly efficient.

Are they twins!?

Yes. Identical. Insert all forms of hijinks you can imagine, here.

Your brand name is weird. Does it have any particular meaning?

In the outdoors communities, “beta” means information. Climbers, in particular, use the term to mean information on an objective or route. So, we aim to impart information for families to help them take some of the guesswork out of getting deeper into the wilderness. As far as being “short”: a) everyone in the family is pretty small, and b) Kristina and Jason often refer to their “little guys.”

How does your brand make money?

We use affiliate links to generate revenue from this website. If you click a product link and then make a purchase, the retailer gives us a little cut (cents on the dollar), and there is NO extra cost to you. This helps us buy the equipment and reserve the time it takes to generate the content we hope to share with all of you, and to keep that content free.

Do you accept payment or gifts from gear companies and other outdoor brands?

We have not accepted any payments or gifts from gear manufacturing, retailing, or other outdoor companies.

How do you get the gear for your gear reviews?

Excepting holiday and birthday gifts from family, we have purchased every piece of gear that we use. We do our research prior to making a gear purchase, trying to avoid expensive mistakes. So, if we are sharing a piece of gear with you, it is because we actually use it and likely have done so for quite some time. The downside of this is that we can’t offer you a super wide range of compare-and-contrast reviews on equipment that are designed to do similar things. The upside is that we really know our gear well, and if we are giving it a positive review, it is because it has been proven to us to be a good buy… not because it was a strategic endorsement or a product placement.

My family doesn’t have a lot of outdoors experience. How can we get started?

We like to say, “start small.” Think locally. Think about finding places that are easier to get to and are fairly well populated. It is more important to make your family’s first outdoors experiences positive than it is to make them robust or challenging. Having people around reduces the anxiety around the nagging “what if something goes wrong,” in the back of your head. Being easy to get to means you can turn around as soon as you or a little one starts to reach their limit. And if that limit happens to arrive earlier than you thought it would, it doesn’t make you feel like you’ve “wasted the whole day” by driving five hours round trip to do a one hour hike.

Do some internet research. Find something that interests you. Make sure it is a short round trip. And be sure to check the weather before you go. If the weather looks bad, put it off and try it again next weekend.

Remember - positive first experiences build positive habits in the future!

Are you open to collaborations?

Absolutely. We are always interested in working with content creators, authors, speakers, educators, and outdoors-people who are passionate about sharing the benefits of outdoor recreation with a broader community. Click our contact link and send us a message!

What’s the easiest way to find my way around the website?

We have a short video and post that announced the launch of the site and quickly went through the organization of the site’s content: