Big Agnes Named Backpacker Mag's 2010 Editors' Choice Award WInner

Big Agnes, maker of innovative sleeping bags, pads, and tents has been honored as a recipient of a 2010 Backpacker magazine Editors’ Choice Award, the most prestigious award in the outdoor industry, given annually to products in recognition of their outstanding innovation in design, materials and/or performance.

Backpacker Editor-In-Chief Jonathan Dorn and his staff of editors and testers presented Big Agnes’ Fly Creek UL2 tent with the award at the annual Outdoor Retailer Winter Market in Salt Lake City, Utah on Thursday, January 21st.

The Backpacker Editors’ Choice Awards, bestowed annually since 1993, honor the products that Backpacker editors have chosen as the best of the year based on months of trail testing by teams of highly experienced hikers and climbers. With no set categories for the awards and no set number of recipients, the products and the testing process drive the award categories.

Big Agnes’ Fly Creek UL2 Tent was one of only 15 innovative products that have been honored with a 2010 Backpacker Editors’ Choice Award. The Fly Creek UL2 tent is a three season, free standing, ultralight backpacking tent weighing in at only 2lbs 2oz.

“In an era of dime-a-dozen digital gear reviews, consumers are looking for product evaluations that they can really trust,” said Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Dorn. “And no one does more than our test team to make sure that our selections earn the respect that Backpacker awards get. Led by Gear Editor Kristin Hostetter, the dozen or so core members of our crew hiked more than 15,000 miles this year, then finished our testing for Editors’ Choice with a 100-mile route through the Swiss Alps that entailed more than 60,000 feet of elevation gain, hours of waist-deep postholing, and weather conditions that challenged every piece of gear we packed. The result of the team’s hard work is a collection of smart, durable products that will deliver comfort and performance for many years to come.”

“Big Agnes is honored to be recognized by Backpacker for our Fly Creek UL2 tent. To be surrounded by such great competition and come out on top with the 2010 Editors’ Choice is something that makes everyone at Big Agnes proud,” says Bill Gamber, Big Agnes co-founder and president.

The Backpacker Editors’ Choice Awards are the gold standard against which all outdoor products are measured, and are a seal of approval that can help put an outdoor company or product on the proverbial map. Each year at the Outdoor Retailer show, retail buyers use the awards announcements as a must-buy shopping list, knowing that their customers will be asking for these products in the spring.

Since their inception, the Backpacker Editors’ Choice Awards have come to be regarded as the most sought-after award for outdoor equipment and apparel found in the industry.The impeccable outdoor credentials and rigorous field-testing standards of the Backpacker staff guarantee that these awards are an undisputed mark of quality for the companies and products selected.

All winners must excel under extensive field-testing conducted by Backpacker’s team of editors, who take hundreds of new products every year into the backcountry to put them to the test.This rigorous process ensures that the performance of the winners is truly worthy of distinction and meets the guiding principle behind the program: gear that is of real value to the readers of Backpacker magazine, who are very active, long-term outdoor enthusiasts.

The complete list of Backpacker 2010 Editors’ Choice Award winners will be officially announced to the general public in the magazine’s April Gear Guide issue, on newsstands March 2, 2010.

Named for a peak in the nearby Mt. Zirkel Wilderness, Big Agnes®, Inc. is located in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and produces award-winning sleeping bags, pads and tents.For more information, visit www.bigagnes.com or call 1-877-554-8975.

Backpacker (www.backpacker.com) brings the outdoors straight to the reader’s doorstep, inspiring and enabling them to go more places and enjoy nature more often. The authority on active adventure, Backpacker is the world’s first GPS-enabled magazine and website, and the only outdoor media whose editors personally test the hiking trails, camping gear, and survival tips they publish. Backpacker’s Editors’ Choice Awards, an industry honor recognizing design, feature and product innovation, has become the gold standard against which all other outdoor-industry awards are measured. And the magazine recently launched mobile media applications that allow users to text-message hiking maps and directions to their phones. In the last four years, Backpacker has won five National Magazine Awards, the publishing industry’s highest honor. In 2008, the magazine won the NMA for General Excellence, joining The New Yorker, Mother Jones, GQ, and National Geographic as top winners in their respective size categories. In 2009, it won three awards, including General Excellence Online. Backpacker has also won numerous other print, design, and digital awards, and its writers have been recognized in prestigious contests and best-of-the-year anthologies.