Gear Companies

Elevator Pitches are written by the company and edited for space and clarity. They do not express the opinions of SNEWS or its editors.Ride the elevator with Zac Rubenson and Alex Thomsen, co-founders of Morsel:You know how normal spoons and camping sporks kind of suck for ...read more

After pulling assault-style rifles from its shelves in the wake of another school shooting in February, Dick’s Sporting Goods is destroying the unsold inventory.“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our ...read more

Elevator Pitches are written by the company and edited for space and clarity. They do not express the opinions of SNEWS or its editors.Ride the elevator with Mike Baker, founder and CEO of SOLE.Years ago, SOLE began a journey down a new sustainable path, committing ourselves to ...read more

The perfect pair of sunglasses shield your eyes from the sun while making you look like a pro on the mountain. With so many options and useful features out there—polarized, plant-based, scratch resistant, and color filtration technology—we narrowed it down to 15 options that both ...read more

Elevator Pitches are written by the company and edited for space and clarity. They do not express the opinions of SNEWS or its editors.Ride the elevator with Haley Robison, Kammok founder.Kammok's All Adventure Camp Blankets are packable, three-part kits that are fast, intuitive, ...read more

KEEN Footwear is on a West Coast tour, showing off the world’s smallest shoe factory.The UNEEKBOT—a robot that builds glue-less cord and rubber shoes in about 30 minutes—is KEEN’s example of how the outdoor industry can re-think the supply chain process by maximizing ...read more

A new store in San Francisco sells a 10-liter backpack in seven colors with a 10-year guarantee for $3.50. No joke. The product is designed, produced, and sold by Decathlon, a French sporting goods retailer operating more than 1,350 stores in 39 countries. And last week, it made ...read more

A backpack for $3.50? Is it too good to be true? The Quechua 10-liter hiking pack comes in seven colors and with a 10-year guarantee. The brand is under Decathlon, a French sporting goods retailer that keeps its prices low by designing and producing its own products for 50 ...read more

One of Diana Seung’s favorite pieces in the new Backcountry.com line is a pair of knickers, light enough to fit under a ski bib but designed to keep women warm all day in the mountains.It was such a hit, men wanted them too, she said.Seung, the executive vice president of ...read more

For almost every day of Charley Friedman’s life growing up, his commute included a ferry ride from Peaks Island to Portland, Maine, the state's "biggest little city." Everything he'd need each day, from a rain shell to his laptop and schoolwork to his lunch, had to fit into one, ...read more

After nearly two years of pushing to go public, Yeti Holdings Inc. has decided against it.A legal filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday reveals that CEO Matthew Reintjes made the decision as a result of “market conditions” and asked that materials ...read more

Forty-six years ago, a passionate hiker, climber and camper named John Burroughs had a groundbreaking idea: Sleeping on the solid earth, surrounded by the wilderness that he loved, shouldn’t need to be miserable.Burroughs had a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford and, at ...read more

After a tumultuous year filled with many question marks, there finally seems to be a path forward for Vermont-based Ibex.Flour Fund, a New York-based group of investors, announced today that it has acquired the intellectual property and remaining assets of Ibex. Flour Fund is led ...read more

Hilde Midthjell is one of Norway’s richest women, and the first to earn 1 billion Norwegian Kroner (by 2016), according to the country’s business magazine, Kapital. She got there by founding, owning, and managing one of Scandinavia’s largest cosmetic and skincare distribution ...read more

REI has placed a hold on future orders with Vista Outdoor brands, such as CamelBak and Giro, as a global gun control debate mounts.The U.S. cooperative's decision comes the same day as its counterpart in Canada, Mountain Equipment Co-op, severed ties with several outdoor brands ...read more

L.L.Bean has long been known for its legendary return policy. But the 106-year old company with the 100 percent satisfaction guarantee has finally tired of being taken advantage of.In a letter to its customers, executive chairman Shawn O. Gorman wrote "Increasingly, a small, but ...read more

We all know the outdoor industry’s legacy brands: Patagonia, The North Face, Arc’teryx, Black Diamond. But where are the fresh-faced newcomers destined to become titans?First, why startups matter: “Innovation and industry progression come from the group, not a handful of ...read more

Oh, 2017 you were a wild one. The outdoor industry made a loud, cohesive stand for public lands, our trade show landscape got a major shakeup, women raised their voices on gender issues, and retailers across the country struggled to stay relevant in a world where consumers are ...read more

Nearly 100 outdoor companies have joined an environmental advocacy organization to protest Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner’s support of oil and gas exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Conservation Communications commissioned advertisements urging constituents to share ...read more

Eight years after becoming the first wool company in the world to incorporate traceability into its products (with its innovative “Baacode”), and just two months after announcing its acquisition by VF Corp., New Zealand’s 22-year-old Icebreaker turns the spotlight on its own ...read more

Ibex Outdoor Clothing, which plans to close its doors in February, might be revived under the leadership of Terry Bicycles CEO Liz Robert. She confirmed Thursday that Vermont Works, a private equity firm of which she is a director, is exploring a bid on the Vermont-based apparel ...read more

Ride the elevator with Alistair Tait, Global Managing Director of Sealskinz. Our new Sealskinz Soft Touch socks combine a bamboo liner and Schoeller hydrophobic fabrics outer with the most waterproof and breathable sock membrane on the market. Our proprietary Sealskinz ...read more

Today, Ibex confirmed its dissolution and liquidation in a letter posted on Ibex’s website. On November 6, SNEWS reported that Ibex had begun to lay off some of its Vermont staff. We are sad to learn that management has not been able to drive the results needed to sustain this ...read more

The ubiquitous black diamond Gore-Tex tag now has a sister. Today Gore announced the birth of the new Gore-Tex Infinium line, which is based around four key product launches, all aimed at areas outside of Gore’s traditional domain of durable waterproof/breathable fabrics.Whereas ...read more