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Presented with support from Garage Grown Gear  |
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The Small Makers Moving Backpacking Gear Forward Most new products are variations on existing ideas. That is not necessarily a criticism - refinement is important. But every once in a while, a small company makes something that addresses a problem in a genuinely different way, and those products are easy to miss. Backpacking Light grew up alongside the cottage gear industry. I remember when many of the companies we now take for granted were still tiny operations, making gear in garages, spare rooms, and small workshops. What interested me then still interests me now: these makers usually begin with a problem they have experienced themselves. A pack doesn’t carry the way they want it to. A shelter doesn’t provide enough usable space for its weight. A small piece of equipment is more complicated than it needs to be. So they start cutting fabric, bending metal, building prototypes, and testing their ideas outside. Sometimes the result is rough. Sometimes it fails. And sometimes it changes how the rest of us think about an entire category of gear. I have always loved that part of this industry. Cottage companies rarely have large marketing budgets or established distribution channels. Many are one-person or family-run businesses. Their products often emerge from direct experience with a specific problem, followed by many prototypes and lots of field testing. This is the work we want to recognize through the Cottage Gear Innovation Awards. Nominations for the 2026 awards are now open. If you have used a product that you believe represents meaningful innovation, we’d like to hear about it! We are not simply looking for the lightest product or the newest material. We are interested in original ideas that improve performance, solve a neglected problem, or give hikers a better option than what was previously available. If you have encountered a product that made you stop and think, someone finally understood the problem, please nominate it. Those are exactly the products we want to know about. 👉 Submit a nomination for the 2026 Cottage Gear Innovation Awards
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Also this weekA Multifactorial Case of Acute Mountain Sickness, Carbohydrate Depletion, and Dehydration The Engineering Behind Backpack Load Lifters Debating the Complexity of Guided Treks, Youth Groups, LNT, and Wilderness Best Practices |
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Originally sent as a Backpacking Light email newsletter. Subscribe to the Backpacking Light newsletter | Affiliate disclosure |
