Ongoing Events

Conservation Alliance Sale

WHAT: Tons of Conservation Alliance member companies have sweet gear up for sale, with part or all of the proceeds benefiting the Alliance. At the Osprey booth, you’ll find our hot, new hydration packs — the Viper + Verve 7s — up for grabs. $25 will get you a sweet new pack and all proceeds will benefit the Conservation Alliance. You can check out the full list of offerings over on the Conservation Alliance site.

WHERE: All over!

Help Save Elephants! And Win Gear!

WHAT: Elephants are being killed by poachers at a rate of 10 percent per year. With just 470,000 elephants left in the world, it means that in just a few years we might lose our wild elephant populations. So, this winter, the Epicocity Project is embarking on a forensic biology expedition to the remote jungle of the Democratic Republic of Congo with the goal of saving wild elephants from the illegal ivory trade.

Take Action right here at OR!

1. Become a Fan of the Elephant Ivory Project on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/elephantivoryproject

2. Donate to the cause! Every little bit helps, and every single dollar goes directly to our cause — whether it’s $5 or $50.

WHERE: Swing by the Osprey booth # 5010 and drop off your donation and a business card in the box:

WHEN: If you need some extra incentives to take action, we’ve got some sweet gear up for grabs. On Day 3, August 5, we’ll pick 3 lucky people to win two awesome prize packages, including two Osprey Packs Raptor 6 Hydration Packs, a tent from Sierra Designs, a SPOT Messenger unite, Mountain Khakis, an Adventure Medical Kits First Aid Kit and some snacks from AlpineAire! So c’mon! Save some elephants today!

Great Gear Giveaway

At the show, you can answer Leave No Trace-related questions to get entered in the Great Gear Giveaway — and your chance to win some great gear! Subaru, Backpacker and Leave No Trace will be giving away product Day 1 through Day 3 at 4pm each day. Osprey’s thrown 1 Veer recycled shoulder bag and 1 Manta 20 hydration pack into the mix!

Wednesday

Keep It Wild: Take Action for Conservation!

WHAT: We all know that if we want to get wild, we’ve got to protect our playground. So visit eight member company booths to take action on behalf of a Conservation Alliance grantee. Take action at all eight booths, have your Keep It Wild passport stamped and be entered to win a fabulous prize package! We’ll be hosting the good folks from the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance! Click here for details.

WHERE: All over!

WHEN: All day Wednesday, August 4th

The Uphill Challenge

WHAT: Take part in this true test of athletic ability, lung power, gusto and fortitude! Every half-hour, M.C. Elinor Fish, Trail Runner’s managing editor, kicks off another duel between two athletes on treadmills set at a 10-percent incline. The athlete covering the most mileage in 15 minutes is declared the winner of each pairing. At 4:15 p.m., the male and female athletes logging the day’s greatest distance will be declared the 2010 King and Queen of the Mountains! We’ve got Helix daypacks up for grabs for all participants!

WHERE: The Salt Palace

WHEN: All day Wednesday, August 4

Thursday August 5

American Alpine Club Happy Hour

WHAT: Osprey hosts the American Alpine Club Happy Hour. Enjoy a gin and tonic and keep a commemorative rocks glass. Enter to win a climbing pack and schwag from Osprey and the AAC.

WHERE: Osprey Packs Booth # 5010

WHEN: Thursday, August 5, 4:30pm – 6pm

Conservation, Events, Product, Retail Promotions Conservation, contests, Events, giveaways, ORSM 2010, Outdoor Retailer, Product

It was just supposed to be a casual day: go for a short tour and get some photos. The weather was so unpredictable for May and June that we had to ignore the forecast and go for it. I was getting ready for a marathon bike race — The Squamish Test of Metal — the next day, and wanted to take it easy. We started our ski day hiking in a whiteout, but to our amazement when we got to the glacier it was a perfect bluebird day. “Let’s tour for 500 feet,” we said. But once we got going it turned into going another 5,000 feet to the summitt. The skies were clear, the wind was calm and the travel was fast, so we had to go for it.

Volcanoes have an appeal that even sharp peaks in the North Cascades can’t equal. They are massive! From their steep faces and crumbling icefalls, cracked glaciers and sloughing moraines to their encroaching forests, glassy lakes and gorging rivers, their grandeur is far-reaching. From Interstate 5 driving or on the back roads of Washington, you can see their snowcapped facades shimmering under beams of the sun or the moon.

Read more…

Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product adventure, backcountry, Climbing, inspiration, mountains, skiing, Variant, Variant 37

Everyone has their favorite pack, and everyone has their favorite thing in it. We want to see yours! Between now and July 30, 2010 we’ll be running a fun summer photo contest, simply titled “What’s In Your Pack?”

You can send us any kind of photos, as long as they document just what’s inside your backpack, bag, purse, satchel… you get the idea! Maybe it’s just a camera for simple urban photo outings, or maybe you’ve got a week’s worth of backountry gear crammed into your internal frame mountaineering pack. Whatever it is, send it our way, and be creative!

We’ll be selecting one photo a week to feature here on our blog, and all weekly winners will score a Digi Stow! At the end of the month two people will win a Farpoint 70, perfect for packing on your next adventure.

How are we going to choose the winners? We’ll be selecting one of our favorite photos, but for the second winner, we need your help. For our People’s Choice Award, vote on your favorite photo by giving it a “thumbs up” on our Facebook page or choosing it as a favorite in our Flickr pool. It’s that simple!

Upload your photos to our Flickr pool, tag with “whatsinyourpack” and be sure to write a description of just what’s hiding inside your pack.

And no, your stuff doesn’t have to be in an Osprey pack… although that always does make us happy!

Product, contest contest, photo contest, what's in your pack

It was a typical day on the North Shore mountains of British Columbia — wet and slick trail conditions. Fromme Mountain is the birthplace of free-ride mountain biking and host of Wade’s Excellent Adventure, put on by the Godfather of free-riding: Wade Simmons.

The idea is to ride four laps on Fromme Mountain in the coastal mountains above the city of Vancouver. Four tough laps of some of the most technical mountain biking in the world. But growing up in this area, I wasn’t too concerned as we started riding with rigid forks on the front and no suspension on the rear.

The first lap on Upper Oil Can was impossibly slick, then down Oil Can and traverse over Baden Powell. Back up for another lap all the way to the bottom. We got the long climbs out of the way first and continued on to the fast section of pipeline.The last lap was on the classic Ladies Only.

By the end, my nerves were shot, but my brother and I rode steady and rolled in for the victory in a time of 3:23:23 for 32 km and 4,700 feet of climbing.

Our Talon packs were ideal for the race: wicked day on the mountain bikes testing the limits in gnarly conditions.

Photos by: Stephen McCabe , Jurgen Watts

Story by Andy Traslin

Events, Osprey Athletes, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product adventure, Canada, mountain biking, mountains, racing

We didn’t meet this gentleman at AT Trail Days, but we love his shout-outs for our Exos 58 along with our gear repair partners Mountain Hardwear and Thermarest!  Oh yeah, and snake guns……

Events, Outdoor Activities, Product Appalachian Trail Days, Exos 58, Mountain Hardwear, Snake Guns, Thermarest

What I learned at Trail Days:

1)      Beauty queens hate water balloons.

2)      Free wood and hot dogs offset any bad feelings about getting arrested.

3)     Drums and bonfires provide hours and hours and hours of night time entertainment.

3)      Yuengling beer is not Chinese.

4)      Southern hospitality is alive and well.

5)      Bikes built in the 21^st century do not exist in Damascus, VA

6)      Eat more meat, drink less coffee.

7)      Never let someone else assign you a trail name.

Not that any of these observations make a bit of sense to the casual reader.  Suffice it to say that #1 and #2 in no way apply directly to me (or anyone associated with Osprey Packs).  Trail Days 2010 is over.   We repaired dozens of packs, fit dozens of hikers, molded several hipbelts, all in the name of making the rest of our hiker friend’s journeys more comfortable.  In the process, we’ve learned a great deal about our packs and how they perform on a long trail.  That in turn gives us the information we need to build a better pack for you, no matter what your hiking demands.

See y’all at Trail Days 2011!!

Written by Gareth Martins, Director of Marketing

Events, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product Appalachian Trail Days, AT, Events

The hikers have begun to descend on Damascus.  We find ourselves in a world of kilted bald men with unkempt beards.  The women tend to be more, shall we say, varietal.  Yes, it’s another Trail Days and to say Damascus will never be the same is a misnomer, because quite evidently, it never was.  Crispy Critter, Buttercup, Blue Eyes, Dead Man Walking – just a few of the folks that have stopped by and said hello today.

This is the largest trail event (probably in the world) for one of the longest trails in the world.  It represents a desire that we all hold somewhere – to unplug and escape for months, to be in a place (both mentally and physically) where time does not matter.  It also represents the proverbial slice of Americana, the kind of thing that can only happen in – America.

Over the next few days we’ll repair dozens and dozens of packs – Osprey and any other brand.  We’ll meet more folks by trail name only and yes, we’ll see more kilts and beards – none of them on women.  This is our time to literally get in the trenches, to truly learn what our customers need our packs to do.  Every success and failure of our product is amplified here. What better place than the AT to learn if that pack really does what it is supposed to do?

Written by Gareth Martins, Director of Marketing

Events, Osprey Culture, Outdoor Activities, Product, Uncategorized AT, AT trail days, backpacking, Damascus, kilts, Packs, Virginia

Last week, Francisco measured the square footage of our apartment.

The total?    325.36.

That’s a small space. Even in New York City, where postage-stamp sized apartments are in abundance and the people who live in them become expert at storing the stuff they think they need but probably don’t in novel configurations–from the ceiling (seriously; our neighbor hangs his bikes this way), in vertical stacks on walls (books), and in hidden recesses (Murphy bed, anyone?) — there comes a time when you have to admit that the stuff you’ve accumulated needs to be given a ruthless once-over.

We have the same stuff anyone else does: books, piles of CDs that we’ve never transferred to iTunes, stacks of paper that we’re convinced we have to keep for one reason or another.

But we also have baggage. Lots and lots of baggage.

I just did a quick inventory and here’s what I came up with:

1. My daily use Baggallini bag. I’ve had this for about three years and it’s as new and sturdy as it was the day I bought it. It’s been with me to Chile, Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and plenty of points in between.
2. A Diesel courier bag. This is Francisco’s, picked up at a thrift shop. He’s had it for years and the only purpose it serves now is to hold some of that paper we’re convinced we need to keep.
3. A Leeds courier bag. This is also Francisco’s, company-issue gear he has to use when he leads educational tours for EF Smithsonian in New York and Puerto Rico. As I also lead tours occasionally, we probably have another one of these bags somewhere….
4. A no-brand gym bag,
5. A leather backpack,
6. A Canon camera gear bag,
7. A Kenneth Cole carry-on,
8. A Baggallini carry-on,
9. A North Face backpack,
10. Two  insulated day packs (one, a gift from a PR rep from the Marriott, another a take-away from the hospital where our daughter was born),
11. A couple of small handbags, made by weavers in Oaxaca,
12. A duffel for checked luggage, and
13. A suitcase for checked luggage (which currently serves as winter clothing storage)

I’m not great with numbers, but that’s roughly 1 bag for every 25 square feet of our apartment.

Did I mention that most of these bags are in a state of utter disrepair? The Kenneth Cole carry on is frayed around the edges and its fake leather hand grip is cracked. The straps of the North Face backpack are ripped and could probably be sewn if either of us took the time to do so. The Diesel courier bag is stained by a permanent marker. The suitcase, though not old, has been put through its paces, especially since our last full backpack–which we normally use for flights–was manhandled by baggage workers at JFK to the point of non-use.

It’s time to clean house. Literally. To deal with our baggage- to give away what’s still usable, to recycle or upcycle what’s not, and to get some new gear.

Today, we’re measuring ourselves for new gear, and we’ll be going all Osprey–not the brand smorgasboard we’ve had to date. We’ll be putting these new packs through the paces, too, giving them heavy use in our daily treks in and around New York City, as well as trips to South Carolina, Cuba, and plenty of other places.

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Over the weekend Osprey made its debut at one of the largest bike consumer and racing events in North America, the Sea Otter Classic.   The reception to our hydraulics packs was outstanding.  Cyclists from all areas including mountain, road and BMX, as well as an overwhelming amount of industry and media folks came by the Osprey booth to learn about our innovative Raptor and Manta series.

Over and over, comments on the features of these packs surfaced, many impressed by the LidLock™ helmet carry, the magnetic sternum strap for easy access and location of the bite valve and the ingenuity of the HydraForm™ and HydraLock™ reservoir compartment.  These features have caught the attention of riders – they are surprised and delighted by our new take on hydration packs, an area that has been somewhat stagnant for many years.

Folks streamed by the tent constantly, on bike and on foot, and the buzz on our packs spread quickly.  For those of you who haven’t been to Sea Otter, the sights and sounds were all about biking, with announcers giving play by play action of the dual slalom, crits and much more.  Being up-close to the downhill and slalom was awesome–the skills on display from riders from all over the world were incredible.  We tried to take in what we could; this is the place to showcase product, and even being a cyclist, it was still a little overwhelming.  Afternoon reprieves came from Bike Mag and SoloSports Punta San Carlos (a baja bike mecca featured in Anthill Production’s Follow Me which premiered during the Sea Otter Classic event) crews’ coronas, a good opportunity to glean a little knowledge of what was hot (…see next month’s magazine for more!).

Our debut at Sea Otter was a success and we’d like to think that we brought a bit of Colorado sunshine with us along with our hydration packs.  It was the first time in years that it’s been sunny and nice.  See you next year!

Events, Osprey Culture, Product, Uncategorized corona, Events, manta, Raptor, Sea Otter Classic

The final day of the 20th annual Sea Otter Classic is today way and what a long, fun trip it has been! I recommend spending your Central California Coast Sunday enjoying the races, festivities and good old fashioned dirty fun this celebration of sport delivers.

Of course you will want to stay hydrated whether racing, riding for fun or just visiting the exhibit area so make your first stop Osprey booth number 242 where you can grab a Raptor hydration pack and experience the real difference an Osprey makes when it comes to on-the-go water management. We have some great giveaways planned and some great new 2010 pack styles for you to preview- the likes of which this galaxy has not before seen.

Ride the trails of the Laguna Seca Recreation Area and smile! Watch the comps and smile wondering where these mutant skills come from! Demo a hot, new bicycle of any style, shape or size and smile.Swing by the Osprey exhibit (where we will be smiling!)and finally use a hydration pack that is designed with both form and function in mind! How can you lose in the sweet sunshine and fresh salty air of Monterey?!

So get out here and enjoy because it’s gonna rain on Monday and you will hae to work!

The Otter Turns 20

Thirsty? Have to find Osprey!

Looking for Carrying Capacity

Events, Outdoor Activities, Product Osprey, Sea Otter Classic