alpine designs, alp sport, Camp 7, George Lamb info needed

Use to own two of the Alpine design tents. The one called the Timberline had an A Frame in the front and a "I" pole in the back with a fantastic vestibule. The colors were sky blue for the tent body and the fly was orange. Also had the Eco 1 which was a great double A frame tent that was very strong. Had a yellow canopy surrounded by navy blue trim and the fly was navy blue as well. My father has the Camp 7 catalog and I think he even has an Alpine Designs catalog. They are in a storage locker. I will ask him if he can g fetch it. I always wanted that Camp 7 North Col sleeping bag because it had that beautiful purple nylon. I do have old Ski Hut/Trailwise catalogs as well as Early Winters. I have an old Rivendell Catalog as well. I think another great company to do research on would be Class 5 which was started by a guy with a German name, I think it was Justus Bausinger or something like that. He use to work for North Face until he started his own company. Great down sleeping bags and a pack that I liked called The BackEx. Had one of the best labels of all time. The Word Class 5 and then an ice axe either above or below the words Class 5.

Scott, catalogs would be great. If you can turn them up we would be most greatful. When I was in high school a friend of mine had a Camp 7 down bag and I was green with envy as that was one sweet bag, especially compared to the fiberfill bag I was using.

Class 5 Mountaineering Equipage
Designers, Manufacturers and Purveyors to the Public

This was in a black and white rectangle.

I've got some Class 5 gear and it is made very, very well. Class 5 always featured great ads, such as this.

Class 5 was started by Justus Bauschinger. Bauschinger began working at the Ski Hut, owned all or part of the North Face, then started Class 5. Bauschinger now owns a company called Deutsche Optik, http://www.deutscheoptik.com/

I have a Class 5 day pack that has the sewer's name sewn directly below the Class 5 label which I think is cool. Bruce is working on a Class 5 page for his web site. In later years Class 5 made some cool looking clothes, I've only seen sketches in ads, but never any real pieces. I hope to find some one day.

Let's try this.

Sorry for the small size, sometime before I die I'll get the hang of this.

My Father had the Class 5 version of the 60/40 parka which could not be copied so the Class 5 was 65/35. It was a great jacket.

I found a perfect condition Class 5 65/35 parka at a thrift store some years back. Of any of the classic brands, the Class 5 was by far the nicest mountain parka style garment I have ever seen. I wore it a bit, but the size xl was just too large for me and ultimately I sold it on ebay.

Yeah, my Dad accidentally left his in a restaurant. He remembered and we drove back to the restaurant, the parka had vanished. Some thief had a very nice jacket.

Hopefully this will help in your research project.

Here is another pack advertised in the Trailwise Catalog.
The Chouinard Ultima Thule.

Sure wish those prices were still around.

Thanks for posting the pictures. What year is the Trailwise catalog in which you found the Ultima Thule? I have several Trailwise catalogs, but none of them feature an Ultima Thule. Speaking of which, I finally found and bought an Ultima Thule last Saturday. I've wanted one for many years to round out my Jensen knock-off collection.

Notice the snow tunnel on the Bombshelter in the previous post. You don't see those too often anymore. My North Face St. Elias has one, a cookhole, snowflaps, and frostliner.

Here is a picture of the Dr. Expando and the explanation of the strange name given to it.

Now that is a unique pack!

We need a Dan Mchale rebuttal to that last paragraph there on the Rivendell packs.:)

edited

Now stop holding back Dan, tell us how you really feel..:)LoL!!!

I appreciate your comments. I did not write that history, I am merely publishing a document from the Winter 78/79 Rivendell Catalog.

The reason why I printed that "A word about our packs" part was because it was refuting everything you were saying about frameless packs over on your site that I copied and posted over here.

It is good to have both pro and con and I thank you again for the comments.

I truly appreciate your comments.

I decided against contributing here but have continued on the Jensen thread.

But what about all these new ultralight companies selling these frameless packs that have weights of less then a pound even and yet people have successfully walked the length of the Appalachian trail wearing these and actually raving about it. Some of these people have written rave reviews regarding these packs on this very site…..The Backpacker people put the packs through field tests and the Jensen pack won. It beat packs in that test that had frames.

My belief is that Gear is like religion. For example, people yammer on about how they believe in the Bible and it's simple one way of truth, yet there are about 10,000 plus Christian religions all teaching different things and disagreeing with each other about this one way of truth.

Same thing with Gear. Some say frameless packs work, some say they don't. Some say single wall tents are great and others say they are condensation torture cells. Some people like synthetics over down and vice versa. In the end, I guess it is up to the consumer to take that magic leap of faith and plunk his or her money down on an item they think will work.

Alan,

I couldn't get it completely straight, but I managed to replicate the advertisment out of Backpacker #2 for the
Alpine Designs sleeping bag and their unique over the shoulder design in the hood area. Patent to this day which you can get off google patents. Shows schematic designs.

Scott, I bought one of the high loft bags off of ebay last year. The bag lofts up like crazy, my guess is it's good to -20 and should be more than adequate for any winter camping trips I take.

One aspect of the Jensen pack that has always impressed me is its relative simplicity. There are not countless pieces of webbing and buckles everywhere. The pack is not for everyone nor every situation, but is a remarkably simple and elegant design for what it does.

Scott, do you have any interest in swapping catalog scans? I've got a later Rivendell catalog scanned as well as a Yak Works and several others. I'd be interested in your Rivendell catalog (love the bombshelter black and white photo) and anything you, or your dad, can turn up on Alpine Designs and Camp 7.

Alan here are some more great pictures of the Bombshelter. This should help the new Jensen people to build the tent. It even gives what kind of poles it uses.

and this picture:

and one more because it has the drawn design.

Alan, I would like it if you posted some color pictures of the Yak Pak here. I know they had more then one model. Please do the one with all the bells and whistles on it to start with. Thanks.

Scott, Here are photos of the Yak Pak which is on its way to New Zealand. The model is the Trois Jour.

Here are the catalog pages of packs in the yak works catalog.

Forgot I had scanned this as well from Wilderness Camping.

Long before ray-way and bpl, sierra west and camp 7, [and moonstone, I think], produced a line of ultralight packs and bags. There was an article in backpacker with their gear lists for hiking the pct in Oregon. Geez, they were hiking in running shoes, imagine that.
One of the packs from the l.i.t.e gear line was the half-dome, about 3350 cu.in., 1.35 lbs. with a waterproof packcover. Camp 7 had a really lite down bag,probable the one from the catalog shot, and offered a vbl and overbag.
I really liked skiing with the jensen pack but disliked the corduroy back from summer hikes/climbs.
It would be interesting if anyone could find the article or gear lists they were using. I'm guessing it was the very early eighties.[It looks like it was BACKPACKER 51]

They mention a 1.5 lb pack at the end of this page.

http://www.mchalepacks.com/ultralight/Detail%20Hi%20Rez%20Pages/Packs%20History%20Pages.htm