Outdoor Divas, the well-known retail shop based on Boulder’s Pearl St. Mall that’s carved out a niche specializing in women’s specific gear, had nice things to say on their blog this week about Gregory’s Jade 35 women’s pack. The packs in the Jade seri
es are the women’s specific counterparts to Gregory’s popular Z series packs, lightweight day and backpacking packs with ventilated back panels. In all there are five women’s specific packs in the Jade lineup currently, with two more new ones to be added to the line starting in January. Gotta like it when you get an A+ on your women’s packs from an outdoor shop that specializes in gear that works well for gals!
Monthly Archive for July, 2009
About a month ago, one of our sponsored athletes, Ben Saunders, entered the Thames Ring 250, the UK’s longest non-stop running race. 
To put the mileage into perspective, the race is comparable to running a little more than 10 marathons continuously. Not to mention, it’s capped at 100 hours meaning you’d have to finish in a little over 4 days. Words like insanity and ‘that’s bloody crazy’ come to mind? Ya, me too.
The best part about it? Ben reported that the race served rice pudding, marmite sandwiches, crisps, and custard at the checkpoints. I guess endurance like foods quinoa and GU energy shots haven’t caught on across the pond yet.
Ben made it to mile 82.25 with the help of his Rufous pack when his right ankle gave. Despite not finishing the race (along with two thirds of the Thames Ring 250 competitors), his accomplishment was really inspiring given his ankle injury and the fact that Ben had never run that distance in one sitting before.
He’s well known for his North Pole expeditions and breaking long-distance skiing records. Since 2001, he has skied more than 1,500 miles in the high Arctic and currently holds the record for longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton. He’s gearing up for three groundbreaking expeditions within the next few years. Stay tuned for updates.
Read his whole story on his blog.
With the number of online social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace or the most recent recommendation engine, LikeMe.Net, it’s about time the outdoor community had a network, too. Outdoor enthusiasts meet, Trails.
The Sierra Club recently launched the site in beta with the goal of providing people a place to share their favorite spots to hike, paddle, bike, fish, bird watch, stargaze, identify flowers, hoola-hoop- you get the point.
The site serves as a library of trails described by people like you and you don’t have to be a member of the Sierra Club to join Trails. It’s a great free resource to find trails in your area or search for trails when you’re on the road. You can create a profile, join/make a group, add or edit trails, or read their daily blog, ‘On Track‘. There’s also a section on community trips and events as wells as tips on hiking, camping, paddling etc.
So, if your looking to broaden your knowledge of the outdoors, share your knowledge, or simply meet people who have similar interests like, say, underwater basket weaving, then you should give Trails a spin. While you’re there, make sure you join the Gregory Packs group!
What’s that annoyingly true saying? The more things change, the more the stay the same. Well, especially if your made out of 6,6 Nylon HT. Not following me? Ya, I’m not really following me either. Let’s back up.
Recently, our Marketing Projects Manager, Stephanie, was camping at the High Sierra music festival and woke up next to a little piece of Gregory’s past, no not Wayne, a Gregory tent! The guy who owned the good looking tent said he bought it from Wayne’s little shop around 1983 and it’s the best tent he’s had ever since.
Wayne designed the tent, a Mountaineer II, out of 6,6 Nylon HT (high tenacity) fabric, which is an extremely sun and abrasion resistant material. Most tents are made from polyester and other nylon grades that deteriorate over time due to ultraviolet light.
Wayne and his friend/partner, Steve Noall, had 3 tent designs which were all made from the same HT material and used Easton aluminum poles. As a testament to the quality of these tents, one of the three designs, the Tahquitz, survived an Everest expedition for 3 months and was the only tent to come back in perfect condition.
The tents were handcrafted with a hot knife and sewed in Temecula, CA. We found an old work book for the Mountaineer II and here is what is said: 
Most backpack reviews have to do with the backpack itself (funny how that works out). And while we will always value what people think about our packs, Gregory understands that it’s not just about creating a great product, it’s also about creating a great brand. And that’s only possible by building good relationships with folks like you.
So, when we came across Cameron L. Martindell’s review of his 18 year old Gregory pack on Off Yonder blog, w
e we’re happy to hear that we’re on the right track. It’s nice to know that Wayne’s freaky obsession with quality and attention to detail is translating to Gregory advocates like Cameron.
When Cameron sent his 1991 pack to Gregory a little worse for the wear, we were able to repair it and return it to him in the best condition we could. Read the full story here.
Thanks for the feedback, Cameron. We hope your pack makes it another 18 years!
Adventure racing season is well underway and Gregory sponsored DART: Team nuun-FeedTheMachine is on a winning streak.
On June 3rd, the team won the Michigan Expedition Adventure Race, one of the nation’s top 3 expedition races. After more than three days of continuous racing, the team completed 100 miles by canoe, 80 miles on foot, and 165 miles on bike. Oh, no biggie. That’s just 345 miles in 77 hours!
Following that win, team members, Cyril Jay-Rayon (the captian of the team) and Jen Seeger took first in a 24 hour mountain bike race in Laguna Seca, part of the world renowned 24 hours of Adrenalin series. Cyril finished the 23 laps in 23:20 with a total of some 240 miles and 38,000 of climbing.
And to top of the winning month, another teammate, Mari Chandler, decided to enter the U.S. Long Course Duathlon National Championships only a week before the start date. A week later she broke the course record. The course began with a 3k run, followed by a 56 mile bike, and then finished with a half marathon.
They’re now gearing up for arguably the world’s toughest endurance race, Primal Quest, which lasts 6-10 days at the beginning of August.
Be sure to follow their progress here.
You can still sign up for one of their clinics that they’ve done in the past. If you live in or plan on visiting Seattle (their hometown) or Los Angeles, they host mountain bike clinics about night riding in those areas. Anyone interested should contact cyril (dot) jayrayon (at) gmail (dot) com for L.A. night rides, and Ryan VanGorder at r (underscore) vangorder (at) hotmail (dot) com for Seattle rides.
Ever notice how much we tend to focus on what’s not working instead of what is working. And with the media’s ’sky is falling’ take on things, it’s easy to understand why every problem looks we’re up you-know-what creek without a paddle.
So, Gregory decided to take a different approach and team up with the Green Living Project, which lends us that much needed paddle to one of the larger issues weighing heavy on everyone’s mind- global warming. The project takes a positive approach and documents stories of successful sustainable living projects going on around the world with the goal of inspiring people with ways to get involved and help promote sustainability.
Most recently the crew returned from South America where they filmed 8 unique sustainability projects across Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. In order to make their journey, Gregory outfitted the 5 travelers (including celebrity actor Sebastian Roche) with the Whitney 95, Deva 85, Palisade, Miwok, and Alpaca Duffles. The packs proved durable in carrying their multimedia equipment throughout the brutal conditions of the Amazon, volcano regions, and mountainous regions of the various South American countries.
Last year, the crew focused on Africa recording 20 different sustainability projects, including community development, water conservation, organic farming, women’s empowerment, solar and biogas renewable energy programs, mountain gorilla, cheetah, leopard, rhino and hyena conservation projects, eco-tourism and responsible adventure travel destinations.
If you’re a sustainability advocate, a passionate world traveler or interested in finding a way to give back, these films are definitely worth seeing. You can still catch the end of that film tour as well as the premiere of the South America film in Salt Lake City throughout Outdoor Retailer, July 21-24.
Exploring the outdoors and photography pretty much go hand in hand. When you spend most of your free time outside, it’s hard not not to snap a I-should-get-paid-for-this picture.
Well, now it’s time to cash in on those still frames and win a Gregory pack. In support of Princeton Tec’s “Got Lights On Heads” photo contest, Gregory has added 4 packs to the prize pot: Z 55, Z 35, Z 25, and a Wasatch. Sweet!
So here’s the deal. Come up with the best shot you have of anything involving lights on your head while playing outside. “On the trail, in a cave, on the water, cooking at the campsite, cranking at your local crag, runing singletrack, startgazing, map-checking…it doesn’t matter, you choose the medium - just make sure there are lights attached to a noggin!”
The categories include: Best Overall image, Best Action, Best Cooking, Best Climbing, Most Dramatic and Most Creative. The top three photographers will be chosen from each category and given awesome prizes, including the Gregory packs listed above.
To enter, upload your pics to Flickr (if you don’t have one it takes two seconds to sign up) and drop them in the ‘Group Pool’ on the Princeton Tec Flickr page ”Princeton Tec: Got Lights On Heads Photo Contest“.
The contest runs from July 8-August 14.
When I think of road-tripping across America, I think of a station wagon, a family of 5, and a lot of ‘are we there yet?’s. It’s sort of every American’s rite of passage to see the country in its entirety. You know, purple mountain majesty, amber waves of grain, yadda, yadda. But, it’s definitely a must-do before you die type of thing.
Well, for the folks at Gregory and people of similar mindset, there’s an alternative to crossing America the beautiful in a station wagon - the American Discovery Trail.
Yep, a non-motorized coast-to-coast trail. It’s 6,800 miles of continuous trails that stretch from Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware, to Pt. Reyes National Seashore, California. The trail passes through 14 national parks and 16 national forests through 15 states and is designed for hiking, bicycle and equestrian use. Nothing particularly timely here other than the three north-to-south country crossings seem to get a lot of attention, and this one not so much.
In 1989, the American Hiking Society and Backpacker magazine came up with the idea of a coast-to-coast trail and in 1990-91 a scouting team mapped the route. You can find route information on American Discovery Trail’s website. And if you’re one of the brave to hike all the way across America, make sure you have a pack that won’t let you down. Catch my drift?
Have you had enough Rice a Roni or things that look like this when you’re planning your backpacking menu? If you’re looking to expand your bag of tricks, here’s a great post from a site that we’ve got on our RSS feed, SectionHiker. As we’ve said before, th
is site’s usually got meticulously thought-out, very useful info on hiking and lightweight backpacking, if you’re into that kinda thing. It sort of makes sense the guy who runs it’s a software engineer.
Anyway, today’s post talks a lot about the value of dehydrating food to create simple, lighweight, nutritous, great meals on the trail. Then you mix ‘em up in freezer bags for easy prep. If you don’t know where to get started on something like this, this is a great overview from someone who’s clearly done a lot of thinking on the matter.
Not only that, but SectionHiker himself outlines his whole menu for an upcoming trip he’s planning in Maine, complete with links to other sites where he collected info on some meals for his trip.
Who says you can’t be a foodie on the trail? Like a lot of things, this shows it’s all about planning.
