Chuck Gorton moved to Golden in 2000, drawn by the mountains and the energy of a town just waking up to its potential as a ski destination. He wasn’t looking to build one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies. He was looking for a place to live and play.
In 2005, Chuck launched a small online shop selling avalanche safety gear — driven not by a business plan, but by a genuine belief that more people venturing into the backcountry needed better access to life-saving equipment. Avalanche safety was personal. Golden sat in the heart of some of the most breathtaking and unforgiving mountain terrain in the world, and Chuck had seen firsthand what happened when people went into the backcountry unprepared. He wanted to change that.
When a friend told him about a new avalanche airbag coming to market, Chuck tracked down the manufacturer and secured the exclusive North American distribution rights for what would become the first legally transportable airbag on the continent.
He incorporated Mountain Sport Distribution (MSD) in the fall of 2008. In those early years, Chuck decided to leverage the connections he was establishing in Western Canada and introduce more brands to what he was already doing. The interest and demand followed.
Starting from avalanche safety, Chuck built out a portfolio of exclusive North American distribution rights across some of the most respected names in powersports and outdoor gear – 509, TOBE Outerwear, Highmark by SnowPulse, Mammut, Fly Racing, Fox Racing and more.
Chuck also added a house brand serving the same customers — Mountain Lab Gear — to the portfolio in 2021, giving MSD a high-margin direct-to-consumer product line that it owned outright.
His competitors, mostly based in Eastern Canada, weren’t paying attention to what was happening in the west. MSD, with its strategic location in the heart of BC’s mountain corridor, was perfectly positioned to see the opportunity and move on it.
Golden turned out to be a genuine competitive advantage. The terrain gave MSD credibility with the backcountry and snowmobile community that no office in Toronto or Montreal could manufacture. While most brands were focusing on Eastern Canada, Chuck saw an opportunity to develop the market in the West. Riders dropped by the shop, gave feedback on products, and became brand ambassadors. When Chuck introduced a local rider, Riley Suhan to the 509 team, he ended up sponsored and featured in 509’s films — which kicked back value directly to MSD. The community was small, the relationships were real, and being embedded in it mattered.
Around 2012, Chuck purchased a building in Golden’s industrial area — a 10,000 square foot facility that housed offices, warehouse space, and a storefront for Avalanche Safety Solutions, Canada’s largest specialty avalanche safety online retailer. Owning that property in a town where real estate was still affordable gave the business stability that a Calgary or Vancouver address would have cost multiples more to achieve.
“Golden is a great place to run a business, particularly in the outdoors. You have great, loyal employees that are willing to work for a reasonable wage. The lifestyle is fantastic. And the tools are in place where the challenges you face are easily overcome.”
– Chuck Gorton, Founder, Spire Outdoor Group, Mountain Lab Gear
As the company scaled, Chuck built systems to solve the classic small-town logistics challenge. He outsourced fulfillment to third-party logistics providers — NRI Distribution in Kamloops and Montreal, and a partner in Denver for US shipments — meaning MSD could operate coast-to-coast without warehousing product in Golden. The company went cloud-based early, which meant when COVID arrived, MSD barely skipped a beat operationally.
The pandemic actually accelerated growth: demand for outdoor recreation gear surged, e-commerce revenue jumped, and MSD’s already-lean, remote-ready structure meant the team could adapt faster than most.
Chuck never seriously considered moving the headquarters. He looked at Calgary once — purely for logistics — but the answer was always the same: his employees wanted to live in Golden, and so did he.
“My employees wanted to live in Golden. They stuck around for a long time. There was very little turnover.”
– Chuck Gorton
Wages were competitive, quality of life was exceptional, and the kind of skilled, passionate people who chose to build a life in a mountain town turned out to be exactly the kind of employees a business like MSD needed.
In 2022, he sold the distribution part of the company to KV Capital, a merger and acquisition firm out of Edmonton. It was a clean exit — a business with durable fundamentals, proven growth, exclusive brand relationships, and a scalable infrastructure that was all built in Golden.
Today Chuck continues to partially own Avalanche Safety Solutions, Highmark Airbags, and Mountain Lab Gear under the company umbrella of Spire Outdoor Group, continuing to build the brand side of the business he started. The distribution platform moved on with the sale. The brands — and the community that shaped them — stayed right here.
With Mountain Lab Gear, Spire Outdoor Group continues to create innovative products serving the powersports industry — tested and designed in the mountains, by people who use them.
