Neil Fiske left a bath and body works maker company two years ago to work as CEOEddie Bauer, the outdoor company that sells <B>hiking apparel</B> among otherthings. He told The New York Times that he set a goal for the company to build "apremium active outdoor lifestyle brand that combines a sense of adventure withstyle."Eddie Bauer was founded by a Seattle sportsman in 1920, and was bought out by acereal maker by the name of General Mills in 1970. After the acquisition theystopped producing high quality gear and focussed more on "casual lifestyleapparel."20 years later, a retailer in Chicago by the name of Spiegel bought the companyand converted it into a retailer selling multiple items, steering away fromfishing tackle and moving more towards everyday good.Spiegel went bankrupt in 2003, and before then anyone who was keen on outdoorgoods steered clear from the brand.Eddie Bauer then became a stand alone company again, and CEO Fiske made thedecision to go back to high quality products. He co-authored a book called TradingUp which explains how Godiva chocolate became an affordable luxury.The company then organized an expedition to try out their new line of product,"First Ascent" to the summit of Mt Everest. The expedition will be led by guidesfrom Rainer Mountaineering Inc. Peter Whittaker, nephew of the first American toclimb Everest will be part of the expedition, as well as Ed Viesturs, the firstAmerican to reach all of the world's 14 8,000 m peaks without the aid of bottledoxygen.In an interview Fiske says "They're all on long term contracts, five years, andtheir role is to spend 20 to 30 days a year with us building the product, testingit, putting it through its paces, helping us market, being the face of the brand.We really wanted to be true to the credo that it's guide-built, guide-trusted.There's no better place to launch a product line than on Mount Everest."Along with the <U>hiking apparel</U>, the climb itself isn't cheap, and GordonJanow of Alpine Ascents says it could cost the company up to half a milliondollars, as companies like RMI typically charge around $60,000 a head to climb themountain."We want to make sure that our brand comes across as the real deal, authentic inevery way," says Fiske.An interesting thing is that the company's website directs consumers to theWhittaker store, for certain products, and Fiske says "I had the good fortune ofclimbing Mount Rainier with [Peter Whittaker] six weeks into the [CEO] job," saysFiske. "And we started talking about how we could bring back the Eddie Bauer-Whittaker relationship."The effort to remake Eddie Bauer is rather urgent at the moment, because it'sstock has fallen 80% on the Nasdaq over the past 12 months, and they've made hugelosses over the last three years. In January they had to let go nearly 200workers, about a quarter of their total number of employees, including part timeretail staff.So Fiske thought the high altitude challenge might be a solution: "Just as much aswe've lost the identity of the Eddie Bauer brand, we've really lost the identityof the Eddie Bauer guy. The brand just became more and more women-focused andwalked away from the men's business, the gear business. It became a less