Our Story
The Holden Family lives on the South Shore of Lake Superior!
We love on a small homestead with three large gardens where we grow an abundance of our own food as well as flowers, herbs and medicinal plants.
This little farm is also home to chickens, ducks, Devman the alpaca, Huckleberry the goat and two cats.
Adventure is at the core of our family. All of the kids were introduced to climbing very young, with Stacy and Dustin as very experienced guides. Our family vacations were mainly road trips to climbing crags all over the country, no matter the drive or the temperature!
As our lives filled with more adventure, our bodies took a beating as well; flappers from climbing, dry skin from gardening, chapped lips and bruises.
We soon discovered that there wasn't a good salve option we felt good about putting on are skin!
And so our dream began...
Outdoors
We are fortunate enough to live close to many beautiful outdoor places. Our whole family is very outdoor-oriented and we love adventuring, whether its exploring, paddling, hiking, surfing or climbing. One of our favorite spots is Palisade Head, on the North Shore of Lake Superior, which is a 200 ft. cliff band of some of the world's oldest rock, towering over Lake Superior.
We also travel around the country to climb at places like The Red River Gorge, Joshua Tree, Rifle, Joe's Valley, the Black Hills and Red Rocks. But the seasons don't stop us! Coulter and Cedar have dove head first into dry-tooling and ice climbing, as well as setting and discovering their own routes. And even the youngest Holden (Opal) will brave the icy cold waves to surf in the big lake.
Coulter on "A Mind Forever Voyaging" (5.13b) at Palisade Head on the North Shore of Lake Superior
Our Salve
We looked around and found very few salves with the natural ingredients we wanted, and even fewer for climbers, so we made our own! We grew the herbs and tried out different oil to beeswax ratios, finding a balance perfect for climbers the 'Climbers Skin Repair', a firmer salve, perfect for the rough, hard, hands of climbers.
It wasn't long before non-climbers started loving our salve as well! So we made a softer salve the 'Skin Repair' for a more universal healing salve.
Soon, the Lotion bar and lip balm followed!
Coulter on his way to a 4th place finish at the 2017 Youth Pan American Championships
Photo: Jennie Jariel
Comps
Comps used to be a significant part of our family culture, Coulter, Cedar and Savi competed in the IFSC USA Climbing Youth circuit, as well as in other smaller local comps.
Cedar has competed at the Youth Pan American Games in Ecuador.
Coulter has competed at the Youth World Championship in Innsbruck, Austria and at the Youth Pan American Championship in Montreal, Canada, where he placed fourth.
Opal (the fourth Holden child) is now beginning her competitive climbing journey as well!
Our Mission
We aim to create a product with organic, home grown or locally sourced ingredients.
Choosing the farmers and the business we buy from carefully, so we can give you a product we trust.
Our salve is made in small batches, and shipped with re-cycled packaging, keeping our goal of living gently with the earth.