Skip to content

Explosive growth for Black Jack skiers’ Nordic Pulse website

Nordic Pulse offers x-country skiers and clubs cutting edge technology with user friendly website
28422475_web1_220317-TRL-Locke-dd_1
Black Jack trails ski page on nordic-pulse.com.

Just over a year since its release, Nordic Pulse is gaining traction in cross-country ski communities across North America.

From Mount Washington, BC to Corner Brook, Nfld. and Homer, Alaska to Crested Butte, Colorado, nordic-pulse.com caters to more than 75 ski areas across North America.

“I made the decision to fully invest my time into Nordic Pulse one and a half years ago, turning down much client website work to give myself the freedom to do so,” said creator Julien Locke.

“I jumped head first into development with a belief in my vision and the feedback/information I had gathered from previous ski area website development.”

The Nordic Pulse website and app was created by the Nelson native and partner Colin Ferrie of Kimberley, both well known to the Rossland community as two of the finest Black Jack skiers to emerge from the club, and they have since put their expertise to good use.

As a skier, Julien was frustrated by the difficulty of finding grooming reports, and, as a web-designer he was determined to satisfy that problem for all skiers.

He created an App that groomers from ski clubs across the continent plug into as they groom the trails of their respective courses.

That info is uploaded to the website, along with snow and trail conditions, giving users/skiers immediate access and updates.

Locke thought a few ski areas might be interested in the Nordic Pulse concept.

Instead, word got out and before he even had a working product, over a dozen areas reached out asking for early access.

“From our launch date onwards, the phone has been ringing steadily,” said Locke. “The growth has been incredible. I’ll admit that I tend to set lofty goals and it’s rare that to exceed my own expectations, but the number of ski areas on board Nordic Pulse has indeed risen much faster than I anticipated.”

Nordic Pulse was launched publicly on Feb. 3, 2021. Since then it has received just under one-million page views and 152,000 unique users, with over 138,000 unique users/skiers signed up this season, and 285,000 page views in the last 30 days alone.

But that success and rapid growth comes with certain challenges.

“I built Nordic Pulse from the beginning with scaling in mind, but going from zero to nearly one-million page views in one year has kept us on our toes,” said Locke.

“In particular, given that we’re serving real-time mapping information to a large audience who often all check their local reports at 7-8 a.m. in the morning.”

Keeping up with the intricacies and unique demands of each ski club also has its difficulties.

“One of the most challenging aspects of running Nordic Pulse has been creating a platform that works for ski areas of all sizes, all with different needs and requirements,” Locke explained.

“We’re working hard to listen to feedback from 500-plus groomers, while at the same time, maintaining consistency and simplicity for skiers and groomers.”

The most rewarding aspect of Nordic Pulse has been the response they receive from those same users, groomers, and ski club operators.

“The incredible feedback we have received from the ski community has been very rewarding,” said Locke.

“Likewise, I feel fortunate to be able to make a difference for skiers on a daily basis.”

The recently released Nordic Pulse Newsletter is intended to keep everyone up to date on their latest features, share insight into how everything is going, and recognize those contributing.

Nordic Pulse kicked off its ‘Meet the Groomers’ series in its inaugural Newsletter released last week.

“We feel that groomers are the unsung heroes of our sport, and we would love to shine the spotlight on the individuals who put in the long hours for the rest of us to enjoy.”

Locke is thrilled with the first year results, and, as he does when racing, will set the bar even higher in Nordic Pulse’s future.“My goal for Nordic Pulse is to continue to grow in both North America and beyond.

“From our view, the platforms become increasingly useful for skiers as more areas sign on. The mission is to have a central platform so that skiers anywhere can figure out where and when to ski.”

The Nordic Pulse innovator also has a roadmap of new features and new platforms that they are currently working on, such as iOS/Android skier apps.

“Our first priority is providing quality support for our ski areas on board, but I’m super excited about some of the new features that will be available down the road!”

Nordic Pulse can be accessed at nordic-pulse.com or on Instagram and Facebook. Please feel free to share, re-post, mention and tag at #nordicpulsegrooming and #nordicpulsegroomers.

Read: Black Jack skier creates innovative new tool for tracking trail conditions



sports@trailtimes.ca

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter



Jim Bailey

About the Author: Jim Bailey

Read more