The ultralight backpacking community loves their cottage industry brands. It can be difficult to find top-of-the-line ultralight gear at big box stores, so many aspiring thru-hikers turn to small, specialty clothing and gear manufacturers.
Most of the companies listed below offer customizations on things like quilts, backpacks, or down jackets that you can’t replicate with bigger brands. Furthermore, putting your dollar toward a small company means more to their success than with bigger brands. Though it can be more expensive, investing in small backpacking brands helps our little community and ensures that your gear is made with love.
Enlightened Equipment Custom Quilts
- Brand story: Enlightened Equipment started in 2007 when founder Tim Marshall began to sew ultralight quilts in his basement. Now the company works out of Winona, Minnesota, and employs over 50 people. They’ve expanded from custom down quilts to jackets, pants, and booties.
- Best for: Their high-quality down fill stuffed between ultralight fabrics makes them extremely lightweight and warm. They’re perfect for thru-hiking when you’re expecting to encounter a range of temperatures yet want to keep weight as low as possible. Quilts are extremely versatile; you can use them as a down blanket in warmer temperatures or strap yourself in around your sleeping pad when it’s cold.
- Why we love them: Not only are their quilts amazing, but their customer service is even better. Their products come with a lifetime warranty, and even if your product gets damaged (and it’s your fault!) you can pay a small fee to repair it. Their products are fully customizable, meaning you get to select your temperature rating, fill power, length, and width. There are endless possibilities with Enlightened Equipment Quilts, and it’s hard to not want to hang a whole fleet in my basement.
Senchi Designs Clothing
- Brand story: Senchi Designs is founder Ryan Windus’s side business as he continues to pursue a career in nursing. While hype for the brand has grown, he continues to take his time making quality products and at his own pace. These are in high demand, so keep checking their website before their next gear drop.
- Best for: Senchi uses PolarTec Alpha material to create lightweight and versatile layering pieces. Their hoodies are perfect for thru-hiking, backpacking, or skiing when lightweight layers rule the day. When paired with an outer shell, it acts as an insulating layer with much more breathability. It’s perfect for high-output activities in variable weather conditions.
- Why we love them: While Senchi makes a quality product, their company ethos is what caught our attention. They could easily jack up prices in response to overwhelming demand, but instead they encourage consumers to consider whether they really need a new hoodie, or if they’re just caught up in the company hype. Read their statement here.
Pack-It Gourmet Backpacking Meals
- Brand story: Pack-It Gourmet is a family owned and operated company out of Austin, Texas. They started making their own backpacking meals out of a VW bus in 1977, where they simply enjoyed their delicious creations on their own backpacking, canoeing, skiing, and camping trips. In 2006, one of their daughters had the idea to create a “one stop shop” for all your backpacking kitchen needs. Today, Pack-It Gourmet offers backpacking “pantry staples,” breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and desserts for every taste bud and dietary preference.
- Best for: Pack-It Gourmet is great for backpackers looking for a variety of meal options that stray away from the typical rice or pasta-based entrees. Furthermore, if you are planning a long thru-hike and want to keep costs as low as possible they offer a variety of “pantry” items. These make a great addition to any resupply box, with vegetables, spices, and sauces to dress up your standard ramen or mashed potatoes.
- Why we love them: The number of options available on their website is overwhelming. I love sending first-time backpackers over to Pack-It Gourmet, because they offer meal options for every stretch of the day. Their cold-soak lunches are delicious and filling, while their warm dinners are calorically dense and full of flavor.
Rawlogy Cork Massage Balls
- Brand story: Marek Bowers founded Rawlogy by accident. He was introduced to rolling out while struggling with debilitating foot pain during marathon training. He used a lacrosse ball and found this technique to completely relieve his pain. Motivated to develop a product with these same amazing benefits yet less impact on the environment, Marek created his recycled cork self-massage ball.
- Best for: Any athlete who has ever struggled with pain or soreness. AKA, every single person reading this. Rawlogy’s massage balls are extremely affordable, lightweight, and packable. They can easily be carried in a hip belt pocket, fanny pack, or even wallet for everyday use.
- Why we love them: Every year hopeful thru-hikers leave the trail due to injury. Preventative care is one of the best ways to avoid this. While foam rolling is great, it’s not practical to lug around a full-size foam roller. Rawlogy’s balls are small yet effective. Pressure points to focus on while massaging are the feet, hips, shoulders, and upper glutes to prevent tightness turning into an injury.
Appalachian Gear Co
- Brand story: Appalachian Gear Company makes exceptionally soft, warm, and environmentally friendly products out of alpaca wool. As longtime friends and business partners, John Gage and Mike Hawkins used their experience in the textile industry to develop a performance-focused product with a lower environmental footprint than nylon or polyester. They settled on 100% alpaca – a fabric that improves on the benefits of merino wool.
- Best for: App Gear Co’s hoodies, crew necks, and accessories are perfect for anyone who enjoys outdoor activity in variable temperatures. Their crews and hoodies are the perfect base layer for a thru-hike, as they manage heat while resisting odor. Additionally, their accessories like the neck scarf are perfect for cold winter running, or even skiing.
- Why we love them: This brand is extremely unique. No other company has successfully created 100% alpaca products for outdoor athletic performance. Their hoodies and shirts are extremely soft to the touch, durable, and odor-resistant. Furthermore, the alpaca wool works to either wick moisture away efficiently during high energy output, or to keep you warm and cozy as a base layer. Though their products are expensive, they’re worth it.
GooseFeet Gear Custom Down Products
- Brand story: Ben Smith was finishing up college in 2010 when he started making down products. Initially, he sold his down socks, pants, balaclavas, and vests through word of mouth. The company’s priority has always been using the highest quality down and offering a range of options to customers. Now Goosefeet Gear offers a myriad of down products and also takes custom orders.
- Best for: These down products are great for backpackers and thru-hikers who are willing to put a significant investment toward the best down jacket money can buy. Goosefeet gear has a number of stock options to buy, as well as the ability to create a custom down product. Their down pants and booties are great for winter trips as well.
- Why we love them: Down is king when it comes to a warmth to weight comparison. Most of the insulating products I use for ultralight backpacking are filled with down. I’ve personally used their down pillow, which is basically a sack of down with a sleeve for another air pillow or balled up clothing. It’s incredibly comfortable to the touch and plushy all night. They also offer a one-year manufacturer warranty and use high quality 850 fill-power goose down.
Cloud Gear Custom Dry Bags
- Brand story: Cloud Gear makes quality, ultralight dry bags that can be customized. They use Dyneema Composite Fabric (DCF) for the strongest yet lightest products possible. A main part of their mission is to keep their products affordable, when compared to similar products.
- Best for: Dry bags, stuff sacks, and bear bags tend to be unsexy yet necessary purchases. These organizational products are life-savers for thru-hikers and ultralight backpackers. Cloud Gear makes it fun (and more affordable) to pick out an organizational system. They have plenty of fun stock designs, and the ability to print whatever you want as well.
- Why we love them: Cloud Gear only makes a few products, and they’re top notch. Their DCF dry bags and stuff sacks are as light as they come, with so many customization options. Consumers are able to choose the thickness of DCF they want, as well as the size and design of the bag. If you want to take it further and get a custom bag with your pet or favorite food on it, Cloud Gear uses a detailed process to ensure these images will never fade or rub off.
Range Meal Bar
- Brand story: Zach Hein founded Range Meal bars in his Bozeman, Montana, apartment. He wanted to create a company with a product that sustained his personal adventures. His original bar was a 700-calorie no-bake option that wound up in high demand from his friends. Eventually he found a space in a commercial kitchen and pursued selling his bars en masse.
- Best for: Adventurers of all kinds who like to be out all damn day. The 700-calorie bars are perfect for before a sunrise summit, a mid-backcountry ski tour snack, or split up into a few different snacks on a long trail run. The dense construction of the bars doesn’t get hard when cold, and they’re made with all-natural and gluten free ingredients.
- Why we love them: It’s so refreshing to see a company that acknowledges the actual amount of energy that backpackers need. So many backpacking meals are marked as “double serving,” only allotting 350-500 calories per serving. This is not enough food for a normal sedentary human, let alone someone who hikes all day. Range Meal bars provide hikers, runners, skiers, or bikers with enough energy to go all day, without stopping to eat every hour.
YAMA Mountain Gear
- Brand story: Gen Shimizu used his mechanical engineering background to develop YAMA’s ultralight packs and shelters. Since developing the concept on his 2006 PCT thru-hike, he’s grown the company with his ultralight ethos. YAMA uses lightweight fabrics and minimal design to create ultralight products, while simultaneously striving to keep their environmental footprint “lightweight” as well.
- Best for: These shelters are extremely unique. Hikers can mix and match individual pieces of YAMA’s shelters to create their dream home. Their website offers both these individual pieces as well as full one- and two-person DCF shelters. They also make a 34L ultralight pack, which is currently in development for a third version. Though their high-end products like the DCF shelters are pricey, they’re on par with the industry.
- Why we love them: We love how YAMA sells individual pieces so you can add a bathtub floor to a tarp you already own as opposed to buying an entirely new shelter. Additionally, they have an entire webpage dedicated to their climate goals.
WEBO (Westbound) Gear
- Brand story: Westbound Gear is owned and operated by one Bay Area woman Eliza, with her partner, Shannon, sometimes helping. Their focus is making quality, fun, ultralight, yet still affordable products for the ultralight community.
- Best for: WEBO’s fanny packs are fun and useful for just about everybody. I’ve taken mine out to concerts, bike rides, hikes, and breweries. Their ultralight materials are also durable, so you can use it as an everyday item while still relying on it for on-trail adventures. Their hiker wallets and shoulder pockets are also great for ultralight thru-hikers who seek extra pockets for organization.
- Why we love them: The color combinations on these fanny packs are amazing. They’re a fun style piece both on the trail and off, with enough space to hold the essentials for either a quick day-hike or a night out. Also, the company is BIPOC owned and operated.