FastStik creator following father's footsteps and returns to South Lake Tahoe roots

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - In 1961 Larry Barksdale packed up his three kids and his wife in the Bay Area and moved to South Lake Tahoe to pursue a life-long dream, opening up a ski shop. He found the perfect spot near Heavenly Valley Ski Resort and named the store Winter Wonderland.

During the early years of running Winter Wonderland, Larry built a reputation as a passionate skier and thrived on bringing opportunity to any kid who wanted to learn. He never let the price of skiing get in the way with a kid wanting to try out the sport. If kids couldn’t afford to buy skis, Larry would give them equipment for free.

As an innovator in the sport, Larry developed a method of modifying a standard ski to have a tilted-up tail for ballet skiing in the early 70s, and still popular today as “twin tips.”

But it was Larry’s “secret” ski wax that he developed that got all the attention. He would bring his wax in an old bottle taped up with duct tape to ski races and wax his boys' skis, or anyone else who would ask, to give kids a fair advantage against other racers who had more expensive wax. Larry’s youngest son, Scott, really took to racing and became a member of the Heavenly Valley Blue Angles Ski Club, participating in all disciplines of ski competitions.

Eventually, Larry sold Winter Wonderland, retired, and moved to North Idaho near Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho so the kids could still have an opportunity to ski and grow up in the outdoors.

30 years later, when Scott’s kids started ski racing, he picked up where his dad left off and started making ski wax again.

It was Scott’s daughter, Kendra, that said, “Dad, you know your wax shouldn’t be just for racing, it should be for everyone. It’s so easy to apply and anyone can do it.” It was then that Scott decided to continue the wax legacy his father started back in the ’70s and make it so simple that anyone could feel confident in waxing their own skis and snowboards. He named it FastStik.

The last several years have been challenging with packaging, branding, and getting the word out - trying to break 70-year-old misconceptions about ski wax application is tough work. Additionally, rub-on waxes to this point haven’t been successful, that is, until now.

Scott and his company COO Cory Mendenhall have been in South Lake Tahoe to spread the word about FastStik. It’s hard for people to believe that waxing skis and snowboards can be so easy with this new product, providing you superior durability and performance over traditional waxes, said Cory.

"FastStik takes little to no time to apply (less than two minutes), lasts longer than traditional hot waxes, requires no special equipment, and saves the user money and mess over the old traditional way of melting and scraping ski/board wax," said Cory. "Additionally, FastStik is showing ski shop owners how to create a healthier and cleaner environment for their employees to work in and making operations 15 times more efficient while eliminating 100% of wax waste into our landfills."

The product is now being carried locally at Winter Wonderland, Snowshoe Thompson’s Ski Shop, Ski Pro, Donner Ski Ranch, Snowind Ski Shop, Rip’n Willies, Village Ski Loft, and Sky Tavern Ski Area. They are also working with, Palisades, Alpine, Mt Rose, and Heavenly Ski Mountains to start using our product.

If you ask Scott, “why FastStik?” he would tell you, “to empower 90 percent of the skiers and snowboarders who don’t wax their equipment - either because of time, skill, or money – to become their own wax expert. We call it waxpert.”

For more information, visit https://faststik.com/ and watch