Sierra Designs | The Story
October 06, 2023The state of California has been the cradle for many of the great American outdoor brands, from Patagonia to The North Face. Sierra Designs was no different – and it got there first too. Though it might not be such a household name compared to those two all-conquering global mega-brands, Sierra Designs pre-dates them both. It was founded way back in 1965, a year before Doug Tompkins opened his first The North Face store, and a whole eight years before Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard set up his first shop.
Maybe California’s well-established link with America’s fledgling outdoor industry has a lot to do with its enviable geography. Sandwiched between the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada mountains, and encompassing no less than nine US National Parks, the Golden State was a natural mecca for outdoor adventurers of every ilk. It soon became a playground for a multitude of outdoor passions. Surfers, hikers, backpackers, mountaineers and climbers all gravitated towards the West Coast state.
Of course, it helped that California was already cool. A melting pot of musical and counter-cultural influences, even by the mid-1960s it had already forged a reputation as a comparatively progressive, forward-thinking place, especially compared to the conservative Midwest and the traditional deep South. Nor was the West Coast as stuffy and buttoned-up as the Northeastern states.
Early Years
All this meant that California was the obvious place for Sierra Designs’ co-founders, a pair of young outdoor aficionados named George Marks and Bob Swanson, to build their vision. And as it happens, it was another outdoor store that first brought them together. They first met in late 1963 while working at The Ski Hut in Berkeley, a laid-back university city on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay. The Ski Hut was the focal point of the local outdoor scene. “It was command central for hiking, camping, skiing, canoeing... snowshoe, backcountry and rock climbing, pitons and all,” recalls environmentalist Paul Hawken, who worked at the store in the early 1960s.
Sierra Designs was born two short years later, on a sailing trip in Monterey Bay, after a not-altogether-serious conversation with friend David Buschman. George Marks later recalled: “Ever the consummate entrepreneur, David frequently asked Bob why he was not in the ‘outdoor’ business. Bob, of course, usually replied that it was really only a question of money. One day in mid-1965, we were invited to a weekend of sailing... During the time at sea, David again asked the same question, but this time to the two of us. Our answer was an easy one: “Well David, if we had your money, we would!” At which point he simply said: “Well, make me an offer.”
They duly made him put his money where his mouth was. The pair initially asked David for $25,000 in seed money to fund their new company. They soon realised that was really not enough, and later went back to him to extract a little more capital. To his credit, he agreed to stump up the cash, though cannily negotiated a bigger stake in the company in return. And though it wasn’t all plain sailing, as Sierra Designs began to roll down the launch slipway, this would turn out to be a very good investment indeed.
With funding secured, it was time to make the vision a reality. George remembered: “We went to work, first to find a place to set up the shop and then to equip it with all the tools we would need. The first order of business was to register the company and to set it up legitimately. The last thing we were asked for was a name and a logo. We had some stormy sessions, tossing out names for this little company, and we had some good laughs about the various suggestions. Finally, Bob suggested the simplest of names: Sierra Designs, named after our own wonderful outdoor playground [the Sierra Nevada mountains]”.
For the first six months, the duo worked like maniacs developing one product after the other. This included a full line of sleeping bags, tents, packs, garments and a range of small accessories. The comprehensive line was the immediate envy of many other start-up Californian outdoor brands, including The North Face – who soon became a long-standing rival and competitor, with both brands pushing each other to be bigger and better, year on year.
Different and better
Right from the start, Sierra Designs was built on the premise that all people deserved good gear for exploring the outdoors, regardless of their background or experience. Taking their years of adventures together out on the trail and putting it directly into the products they made, Bob and George pioneered many of the outdoor innovations taken for granted today. Tent inner clips, premium down sleeping bags, ultralight two-person tents and gender-specific sleeping bags for men and women: all these now industry-standard products were first introduced by Sierra Designs.
Both of the brand’s founders had an eye for detail, as well as differentiation when it came to outdoor gear design. This is what distinguished Sierra Designs’ early products from the rest of the competition: they were simply better, in small but significant ways. Take the company’s first major success, for example: the 60/40 Mountain Parka.
George Marks himself called 60/40 “the cloth that made us famous”. The material in question was a soft yet sturdy 60% cotton and 40% nylon fabric blend (hence the name) that was not only windproof but also reliably weatherproof – especially in an age before Gore-Tex. The mountain parka was a classic all-purpose outdoor jacket that soon proved far superior to rival ‘shells’ of the mid-sixties. These were typically made from coated nylons that were uncomfortable, noisy, sweaty and not actually very waterproof, since innovations like seam-sealed garments were yet to be developed. In comparison, 60/40 cloth was durable and robust, and surprisingly resistant to all kinds of weather, especially if treated with a coat of silicone spray. Added to which, unlike the earliest waterproof membranes, its performance wasn’t affected by dirt, sweat, bodily oils or other contaminants.
There were other little details too. For example, one of the 60/40 parka’s unique features was a small flap at the top of the zipper. George said of this seemingly insignificant innovation: “One day the sales manager told me of some complaints about the slider coming up to the chin and it being very cold. It took me about ten minutes to design this little flap and it solved the problem right away”. Today, the ‘chin guard’ is a feature of almost every technical outdoor jacket. It’s so ubiquitous that it almost passes without comment – and though it might not make or break an outdoor adventure, it’s a little thing that certainly adds to overall user comfort.
The original Mountain Parka soon became de rigueur for any serious (or wannabe) outdoorsy type. It spawned a legion of inferior imitations, to the extent that the brand then had to develop a distinctive label to demonstrate their product’s authenticity. Eventually, it even made its way on to the big screen: Robert DeNiro wears a signature burnt orange SD 60/40 Mountain Parka in Michael Cimino’s critically acclaimed 1978 war epic The Deer Hunter.
Backcountry born and bred
Other successes followed hot on the heels of the mountain parka. As a result, the company ballooned to twenty-eight full-time employees by 1968 – even George’s mom helped out in the sewing department. Sierra Designs’ official company history refers to those early years as a ‘family affair’, and they mean it literally.
The core product range focused unwaveringly on backcountry backpacking. Well, mostly – there were some occasional offerings straight out of left-field, as the 1980-81 catalogue spread below shows (Scottish wool ‘motoring cap’? Juggling set, anyone?). However, unlike other outdoor brands, Sierra Designs was never wholly distracted by the more glamorous (and expensive) worlds of high-altitude mountaineering or classic alpinism – though they did dabble in both. As such, in contrast to many of the so-called “top of the mountain” brands, Sierra Designs never committed the sin of thinking backpacking as being somehow ‘below them’ and thereby alienating or affronting its core market.
Of course, there were inevitable bumps in the road. But while some things have changed in the last fifty years, the mission hasn’t. Today, Sierra Designs continues to be a place where you can find genuinely innovative hiking and camping gear: outdoor equipment and apparel that is functional, beautiful, and most importantly, attainable, enabling outdoor lovers throughout the USA and beyond to hit the trail and fill their souls with a sense of wanderlust. It’s an outlook summed up by the brand’s tagline: ‘think outside’. It’s a motto, of course, that works on multiple levels. Because it also means continually thinking outside the box.
Designed by backpackers, for backpackers
One way in which Sierra Designs has been able to consistently innovate in outdoor product design is because it has actively sought out the advice and opinions of experienced backpackers and thru-hikers. The prime example is its work with Andrew Skurka, an American professional backpacker who is best known for his two long-distance hiking firsts – the 6,875-mile Great Western Loop and the 7,778-mile Sea-to-Sea Route. The former linked 5 long-distance hiking trails, 12 National Parks and over 75 wilderness areas. Skurka hiked it in 208 days, an average of 33 miles per day. The latter was a transcontinental network of long-distance hiking trails from Quebec to Washington, which took him 11 months and involved 1,400 miles of snowshoeing. After these feats, National Geographic Adventure described Skurka as “a Gen Y version of Henry David Thoreau or John Muir”. His style of long-distance backpacking is essentially what has defined the modern day ‘light-and-fast’ ethos of backcountry travel.
From 2012 to 2018, Sierra Designs worked with Andrew Skurka as a product consultant and, latterly, as a brand ambassador. This wasn’t just a sponsorship deal. As well as injecting personality and credibility into the brand, Skurka was instrumental in developing and testing new product lines. This included a new backpack and a new shelter, both of which ended up being perhaps the most notable successes in Sierra Designs’ recent history. The pack was the hugely versatile and multi award-winning Flex Capacitor; the shelter, the lightweight yet spacious High Route: a double-wall, one-person trekking pole tent.
The Flex Capacitor’s USP is a gusset system that allows the pack to quickly and easily expand in volume by up to 20 litres, simply with the adjustment of a few straps. Rather than increasing storage vertically, like most top-loading designs, it expands outwards, providing useful additional capacity in the main compartment without adversely affecting load-carrying stability or comfort. For any backpacker who’s ever needed to overstuff a pack in order to take on extra food, water or other supplies, it’s a genuine game changer.
For a solo shelter, the High Route offers massive interior volume, an unusual ‘1.5’ door configuration and twin vestibules. It’s lightweight, at just 880g (less than 2lbs) yet is made with robust fabrics and components. And unlike many other trekking pole tent designs, the poles do not block the entryways or intrude on the sleeping area. The double-skinned design is also well-ventilated, even when it’s raining or snowing. Vertical and steeply sloping walls maximise interior volume (and particularly headroom) for the size of its footprint. With a little practice, it’s also simple to pitch and adaptable for different conditions. Or – to borrow Skurka’s own words – “it’s comfortable in crappy weather, on gear-intensive outings, and for larger backpackers”. There are now two generations of this outstanding shelter, plus an even more weatherproof ‘3,000’ version, specifically designed with predominantly wet Northern European climates – like Britain – in mind.
Innovation, sustainability and social responsibility
Product lines aside, other Sierra Design innovations extend to materials too, such as the brand’s moisture-resistant, hydrophobic DriDown insulation and compressible yet cosy SierraLoft synthetic fills. An important element of this, of course, is sustainability. Over the past decade, Sierra Designs has transitioned to materials and manufacturing techniques that use fewer resources, create less waste and better protect people’s health. Much of the new range of apparel and equipment also incorporates recycled polyester, making use of textile waste and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from virgin manufacturing.
Then there’s the brand’s social responsibility initiatives. Front and centre is Reach Out, an initiative designed to increase accessibility and participation in the outdoors. Sierra Designs has partnered with four organisations: LGBT Outdoors, SOS Outreach, Outdoor Asian and Women’s Wilderness, to address common barriers to outdoor recreation. In 2022, 1% of all web sales was donated to these organisations, which were further supported through gear donations, education and awareness-raising messaging.
It all points to a bright and more sustainable future for the brand. Where the next fifty years will take Sierra Designs is difficult to predict. But one thing’s for sure: just like those ground-breaking early products, it’ll continue to be “different and better.”