Hi! My name is Caroline Gleich and I am a Gregory sponsored skier from Salt Lake City, UT.
I just returned from Hokkaido, Japan a few weeks ago where I was skiing lots of deep pow with Sweetgrass Productions for their upcoming film. Their entire film is based on being in the backcountry, so we spent many long days touring in the quiet wilderness around Niseko. Check out some photos:
My Gregory Drift pack was indispensable for this trip. The Drift was the perfect size to hold my backcountry essentials, some extra layers and all the food I ate.
Now I’m back in Utah touring around the Wasatch. Stay tuned for more pictures and video soon.
Here’s a novel idea for blending in while you’re in bear country. Thing is, there aren’t bear-head compartments in most packs, so this may be a unit for car camping.
Whether or not you can lock up the front door and just take off to the far-flung corners of the world (around here, we do have day jobs after all), you’ve got to appreciate a post titled ‘How to travel the world for free.’ At least we do. 
This comes via a cool website/community at TheTravelersNotebook (run by the Matador Network), a site (or, really, group of sites) that wasn’t on our radar before but that’s got lots of cool adventure travel advice on it. Props to Uncooped, one of the sites on our blogroll that we check out pretty regularly, for bringing it to our attention. We like their take on travel - that an adventure can be anything from exploring in the middle of nowhere to checking out the hippest bars in NYC. Lots of good reading here.
If you’ve ever cast it all aside and just taken off, the nine tips are sort of common sense, but they’re a good reminder that if adventure is important, you can make it happen - no matter the budget.
How’s this relevant to a company that makes packs? Well, while our packs are designed for backpacking, mountaineering or skiing, lots of folks also use our stuff for adventurous travel. It’s good to be comfortable walking from one place to another, whether that’s on a long-distance trek or shuttling between bus and hotel. Plus, it inspires us to get back out there.
And for those who aren’t quite ready to hand in the resignation and head off to Tibet anytime soon, there’s lots of other useful posts on a variety of subjects related to adventurous travel. House swap anyone?
Anyone who knows the Gregory brand knows it’s not unusual to run into a Gregory pack in just about any corner of the world. That apparently includes traveling around the world on TV. 
Margie and Luke Adams, a mother-and-son team from Denver participating in this season’s 14 installment of the Amazing Race, won the first leg of 14th running of the race, which aired Feb. 15, wearing a Gregory Jade 50 and a Z55 on their backs. No doubt the Jet Stream suspension helped them jet to the finish line …
Although being on TV isn’t exactly why we build packs, it’s nice to see folks on an adventure-oriented show like this one choosing a Gregory, particularly in a reality series like this one where participants carry everything they need on their backs throughout the race and no doubt count on the pack to stand up to some abuse and function effectively over the long haul. We had no idea Gregory was on the backs of an Amazing Race team, till we got an e-mail from our astute reps out in the NW this morning.
Keep an eye peeled through the next 10 episodes to see how Margie and Luke fare. The show airs Sundays at 8 eastern.
Hey everyone….Coming at ya for another blog installment and a WHUDDUP with me! I am here in Southern Utah right now, loving life and climbing like mad. There is constant sunshine here and LOTS of rock to overwhelm a climber like me. We have actually had a few days of snow too, which is pretty odd for the desert. But, in all the snow days and few days we’ve stayed in, it only gets you more PSYCHED to get out and get at it!!! 
Colette and I will be here for the next few months climbing, developing cliffs and having a great time in the desert south west. 
Here’s a picture of one of Gregory’s owners, Rob Schiller (in the Targhee) with sons Jonah (13) and Sam (11) looking across the valley to Powder Mountain. I’d say this is pretty much the definition of work/life balance. We’ll be sure to follow your example back here at the office.
If you’re a fan o
f hiking and backpacking in national parks and want to expand your horizons world-wide, here’s an interesting list of the top 10 foreign national parks as compiled by the Coalition of National Park Service (U.S.) Retirees.
GetOutdoors also blogs about the list (tagged under ‘meaningless lists’ in true GOBlog fashion), but to the mix, citing a lack of South American parks.
In our opinion, ranking parks in order of significance is a tough sell no matter your experience, but it’s still good info on worthwhile places to visit for that life list. One would assume park service employees have a good read on world parks of interest to visit, since the list is pegged on the premise ‘ever wonder where people who work in national parks go when they take a vacation?’
Gregory backpacks, because of the brand’s rep for such bombproof and u
nique construction, have developed a bit of a following among collectors of vintage outdoor gear. Here’s a fun post by a guy who’s a fan of these kinds of packs, calling out a Gregory that was recently for sale (but that’s now been sold) on eBay.
Gregory was founded in 1977, but you’d think it might have been 1976 from the colors on this pack.
So we’re going to have a little fun with this. If anyone can accurately ID the model name of this pack, we’ll send you your choice of pack from Gregory’s new Active Trail line. First correct answer posted via a comment here on the blog wins.
Bonus extra swag will accompany if you can correctly tell us what year it first came out. We will give you one hint: Don’t let the bicentennial reference above fool you.
More props for the Gregory Drift, this time from the folks over at UtahSkier.net:
“The bottom line: The Gregory Drift is one of the best daypacks we’ve ever tested. Easier access to gear stowed at the bottom of the pack would be nice, but that’s the only shortcoming we can come up with. ”
We’ll take that. They do know a thing or two about skiing over in Utah. And just to address that latter point, this isn’t the first time we’ve had that bit of feedback on access to the very bottom of the main compartment, pretty much the only negative comment we’ve had on the design, so, based on that, look for the Drift’s zipper on this coming fall’s version to extend all the way down one side of pack. That, and new colors as well.
We do listen to your feedback … so keep it coming.
The editorial team over at CoolHunting recently headed out to Crested Butte, CO, for a little product testing, and Gregory’s Drift pack, a compact little unit designed for in-bounds and sidecountry skiing and boarding, or shorter ski tours, earned a nice mention in a story on gear they used and liked on the trip.
If you’re not familiar with CoolHunting, it’s a very popular (check out the page rank) site that offers daily posts about ideas and products
where “art, design, culture and technology” intersect.
We find it interesting that they picked up on the Drift, which is far from the sexiest pack in the Gregory line, but is one of those pieces of gear that - when you use it - shows you very quickly that a ton of thought went into how it functions. It looks quite basic (it is from the school of everything you need, nothing you don’t) but there’s a logical place for all the tools of the snow trade - shovel, shovel handle, probe, skins, insulated hydration, layers, etc. - and access is such that you don’t have to go digging to get at what you need.
Arguably the coolest thing is something CoolHunting pointed out - that the Drift has sufficient space for more gear when you need it, but is also designed so it’s very low-profile when you’re riding lifts. Because there’s nothing worse than having to take your pack on and off repeatedly when loading chairs. That sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how many ski packs there are out there that don’t really meet the needs of both the resort and the need for sufficient gear space for forays into the backcountry.
We think that’s key with more and more people riding chairs to access sidecountry terrain, as well as more folks who just want to take along lunch, food and layers for a day on the slopes.
