Video: Camp4 Collective; Images: Andy Earl; Words: Chris Parker

“Where did you get out this weekend?”

Brent Barghahn loves hearing this question from his boss every Monday morning. After waking up in his converted camper van in Black Diamond’s parking lot, the 23-year-old climber and BD Design Engineer walks in bright and early prepared with an answer.

Yesterday, it was Zion. Next Monday? Maybe it’ll be Red Rocks. Two weeks from now? Depends on the weather … but Yosemite’s looking pretty nice.

Move a little further from Brent’s gear-laden desk and you’ll hear similar Monday conversations. There’s coffee-fueled tales of intricate crux sequences happening in the marketing department. Floaty turns of perfect snow are all the rage over in sales, and the QC Lab guys are discussing which buttresses were less crowded at the Creek.

By Wednesday, however, the conversations have shifted, and are focused on what’s to come. The usual bookmarked web pages are open again, and weather forecasts mixed with beta are the de-facto topic of choice. Brent will poach the internet that night to scour Mountain Project while camping in BD’s East Lot. By Thursday, most, if not all of us, will have our own weekend plans in motion.

When Friday morning finally rolls around, Brent and the rest of us will be cranking at our desks. Some of us will be making gear, while others are marketing or selling it. You can even venture over to the QC Lab and find the crew trying to break that very same gear.

The bottom line is that our BD team is here every day working hard for you, and with one sole-purpose in mind: to engineer and manufacture the world’s best gear for adventure. This process starts inside the walls of our Salt Lake headquarters, and gets tested in the field every weekend by Brent and the rest of us who live and breathe the brand.

OK, so now it’s Friday afternoon. Our gear is packed for the next mission, and we hope yours is too.

The question is:

Where do you want to go?

—The Employees of Black Diamond