Crescent Moon, a Boulder-based snowshoe company founded by Jake Thamm and his wife, Tamara Laug, got its start on a Vail bar napkin. Fifteen years ago, over drinks, Laug sketched their design for a unique snowshoe binding that wraps your foot from every direction; since then, the company has grown 10 to 15 percent each year. These days, Crescent Moon’s 10 employees construct about 9,000 pairs of snowshoes a season. Industry giants Atlas and Tubbs, by comparison, each produce about 50,000 per year. Faced with the question of whether to mass-produce their product overseas, the couple decided to continue handcrafting in Boulder to keep the environmental impact low. (Crescent Moon is 100 percent wind powered and recycles scrap material.) “It has to be a good product,” Thamm says. “But we’re hoping our environmental practices will make a difference to the market one day. Somebody has to do this even at a small scale to show that it’s a financially viable choice.” crescentmoonsnowshoes.com