Category: Gear

Cameron staying warm wearing Ibex in the
Alaskan White Mountains. [Full Story]
Photo by Nathaniel Wilder

I’ve come back to wool. When I started my personal journey into outdoor recreation in earnest I was 14 and still mostly at the behest of my parents financial support for the requisite clothing and gear. So when I decided to join the Explorer Search and Rescue unit that covered the Cascade Mountains in Washington State my parents were hesitant to buy me the fancy polypropylene and fleece layers that were so popular in the early 1990’s. Instead, I ended up with the heavy and cheap (but very warm) Army Surplus wool.

Since then I’ve kept with my outdoor recreation enthusiasm and have been through a number of synthetic insulation layers. But I’m done wrapping myself in plastic against my skin. Maybe it was the years in the rough Army surplus wool that made the transition to the silky smooth Ibex wool layers so easy. Maybe it was the clean cut of the base layers that snuggled against my body and moved with me with out bunching up. Maybe it was the bright and bold, the cool and subtle, the classic black, the earthy heath and heather… a great array of colors to choose from that drew me to Ibex.

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I got this Gregory backpack for Christmas in 1991. It has been my steady companion for 18 years, hundreds of miles, thousands upon thousands of vertical feet and through more baggage claim turnstyles than I can count. It has been taking it all and is ready for more. Sure, the color has faded some after years of exposure to the sun and weather and at one point a few years ago, I must have ripped the bottom of it somewhat.

So I took it to REI where they took care of shipping it back to Gregory for me to get that rip repaired and what I got back made me a great fan of Gregory’s customer service department. Not only did they patch the rip, but they meticulously searched over every square inch of the pack and added a few stitches here and sewed up a bit there in spots that were starting to fray and show wear.