Hagan in 2026 & Beyond

 

The Hagan story: A hundred years, one obsession, and an open door

You might have noticed we look quite renewed around here, new logo, new website, a new way of saying things. There's no better time to properly introduce ourselves. So: who is Hagan?

The short answer hasn't changed in a hundred years. We make gear for ski touring, the simple act of earning your turns. That looks different from one skier to the next: we build for people chasing casual powder laps and for people climbing and crossing whole mountain ranges. Either way, our equipment is for those who travel over snow under their own power. That's the whole business. Not a little of everything for everyone, one pursuit, built carefully, since 1924.

This is that story, all of it: where we came from, what we make and why, who ski touring is really for, and the people who make up Hagan on both sides of the Atlantic.

It started in a wagon factory

In 1924, in the small Austrian village of Antiesenhofen, two brothers, Franz and Hans Hager, built wagon wheels. It was good work, but they could see where the world was headed: the horse-drawn wagon was on its way out, and the automobile was on its way in. So they placed a bet on a different kind of movement. They turned the workshop toward toboggans and skis, and named the new venture with a word stitched from their own: Hager, plus the first letters of Antiesenhofen. Hagan.

The first skis were solid ash cut from slats, boiled in hot water, and bent over heated iron molds. By 1925 they were selling five hundred pairs a year.

We bring up the wagon wheels for a reason. Years later, when ski touring became fashionable and every big brand rushed to bolt on a touring line, we liked to say we hadn't jumped on the bandwagon, we literally built the wagon. Turns out that was more literally true than we ever let on.

What followed was a century of the same instinct: adapt the craft, never abandon it. The founder's daughter, Hermine, carried the company forward with her husband Ludwig Siegesleuthner, moving from solid wood to layered construction, adding fiberglass and aluminum, sending the first Hagan skis abroad. Their son Franz took it further, earning Hagan a name for ski design that still has a cult following in Austria.

Then, in the mid-1990s, the whole ski industry fell off a cliff, Austria's included, Hagan's included. Plenty of century-old names didn't make it out of that decade. Hagan made a decision that would come to define everything since: instead of trying to be a little of everything, it closed the old factory, relaunched, and committed entirely to the backcountry, ski touring, and only ski touring. Skis first, then bindings, then boots.

That's the part worth sitting with. The focus you see today wasn't a marketing angle dreamed up in a meeting. It was how the brand survived. Only afterward did it become who the brand is. A hundred years on, Hagan reached its centennial and passed into a new chapter, new Austrian stewardship, the same obsession with the craft, still built for one thing.

Built, not borrowed

Here's what a century of focus actually buys you: we don't make everything, so we get to make one thing carefully.

We didn't put a touring topsheet on an alpine ski and call it a day. Every Hagan ski is designed from nothing to do both halves of the day, up as light as we can make it, down with as much fun as we can build in. In fact, our testers only judge our skis on the descent. Weight already decides how good the climb feels; get that right, and the up takes care of itself. So the way down is where a ski has to earn its keep. Both halves, or it isn't finished.

The list of what we make is short on purpose: skis, bindings, boots, skins, poles. No clothing, no hiking boots, no running shoes. Our skis, skins, and poles are made in Austria; our boots in Italy; our bindings in partnership with ATK, the specialists in milled-aluminum lightweight construction. And we stand behind all of it, Hagan was the first ski company to warranty its products for five years instead of two, because gear built this carefully should last. When it's all you make, the details aren't a marketing bullet. They're the entire job.

You don't get to the top by sitting down

But the gear is only half of it. Here's what we actually believe.

The best part of the descent is that you earned it. You didn't get to the top of the mountain by sitting down, you got there under your own power, one step at a time, usually with a friend or two breaking trail beside you. That's the part we love most: the quiet, social hours of the climb, and the celebration waiting at the top. The descent is the reward. The climb is where the day actually happens.

Ski touring is for all

And here's the thing we most want you to hear: that feeling isn't reserved for anyone.

Somewhere along the way, ski touring picked up a reputation as a hardcore-only sport focused on steep couloirs, enormous days, and for experts only. We'd like to help put that idea to rest, because it keeps out people who'd love it. Ski touring is for far more people than its reputation suggests, and that probably includes you.

Start with the biggest worry, because it's usually the real one: you don't have to ski avalanche terrain to be a ski tourer. You get to choose your terrain, and mellow, low-angle days in gentle country absolutely count. Learn the basics, choose your days well, a little avalanche education goes a long way, not because you're headed for the scary stuff, but because knowing how to pick good terrain is exactly what keeps the mellow days mellow and an enormous amount of beautiful, low-stress touring opens up.

And if you already spend your summers moving through the mountains under your own power, trail running, mountain biking, well you're most of the way there. Ski touring is simply how that instinct carries into winter: the same pull to get up high and move through wild country, in a different season. The natural way to keep going year-round.

None of that means the bar dropped. It's the same gear the serious crowd has trusted for a hundred years. The standard didn't move, the door did.

Three ways in

Which is why the range isn't one ski trying to be everything. It's a century of focus, pointed in three directions. Wherever you are, there's a starting point.

Adventure / Freeride — for the days when the descent is the point. Wider underfoot, playful, built to be enjoyed on the way down, and still light enough to earn it. Flagship ski: Boost 105.

All-Round — one ski, most days, most conditions. This is where most people should start, and where plenty of people happily stay for good. Flagship: Core Carbon 89.

Performance — light, fast, and precise, for skimo and big link-ups where every gram counts. Flagship: Ultra 79.

The people who ride Hagan

Ask what a Hagan skier looks like and there's no single answer and that's the point.

Justin Sackett — Professional Ski Guide and Alpinist from Washington, owner of Skyline Mountain Guides.

Meredith Edwards — Professional Trail Runner and Ski Alpinist based in Colorado.

Brooke Haynes — Professional Ski Mountaineering Racer and Coach based in Utah.

Max Kilcoyne — Aspiring Ski Alpinist based in Colorado.

A guide. Someone's mom on a Tuesday morning. A trail runner who found winter. A racer, sure but not only a racer. Ski touring is for all of them, so the people who ride our gear look like all of them. For a full list of our athletes and guides, visit our Ambassador Page.

Where to find us

We're not just a name shipped over from Austria. You'll find Hagan on the shelves of independent shops who carry us because they ski this gear themselves. Austrian roots, American skin track.

Shops like:

Skiboot RX in Billings, Montana
Tin Shed Sports in Nederland, Colorado
Leadville Outdoors in Leadville, Colorado
White Mountain Ski Co. in Stowe, Vermont
Pro Ski and Mountain Service in North Bend, Washington
…and many more.

These are the people who'll fit your boots, talk you through your first setup, and point you at the right ski for the terrain out your door. For a full list of our retailers, navigate to our retailer locator.

The team on this side of the Atlantic

One more thing worth clearing up. Hagan Ski USA is an independently owned subsidiary — your North American crew — acting as the distributor for Hagan across the U.S. and Canada, working hand in hand with our friends in Austria (and alongside sister distributors in places like Norway and Chile). We're a small team who ski this gear, answer your emails, and know the terrain you're asking about.

Mike Hogan — CEO, Hagan USA
Karen Hogan — CFO
Jack Breezley — Digital Marketing Lead
Owen Lee — Social Media Coordinator
Kelsey Walsh — Fulfillment Lead
…plus numerous friends and family.

Not a faceless import. Austrian roots, local hands.

Come find your line

That's who we are: a hundred years of building the gear that gets you up a mountain and back down it, a belief that the climb is worth as much as the descent, and an open door for anyone willing to earn their turns. We've spent a century getting one thing right, and we're not about to start doing everything else. New look. Same obsession.

Come find your line — and tag us in it.

#skitouringforall