Bight Gear Announces Project Vertical Winners
New outdoor apparel brand makes call to community to join R&D team, selects four winners join Rainier expedition.
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Ashford, Wash. (November 28, 2018) — Bight Gear, a specialty outdoor apparel brand named after the bend in a climbing rope, today announced the official winners of Project Vertical: Nate Dodge, Amanda Gehrich, Bennett Fisher, and Sarah Lee. The winners will join Bight Gear on an all-expenses-paid, four-day Mount Rainier expedition in July 2019 to field test Bight Gear prototypes.
Bight Gear selected the winners from a pool of nominees who submitted videos via a BACKPACKER magazine contest on why they were best suited to join Bight Gear on Rainier this coming season. The winners’ love for the outdoors and clear expertise in their respective fields made them easy winners, says Whittaker.
“The guiding principle of Bight Gear is authentic, in-the-field R&D—we live and work on the mountain, it’s just where we are. It’s why we put each item through at least 100K vertical feet of testing before we bring them to market,” said Peter Whittaker, CEO and founder of Bight Gear, RMI Expeditions, and Whittaker Mountaineering. “Project Vertical invites our mountain community to join our dedicated team of guides up on Rainier. We are excited to share the rope with them and gain their in-the-field feedback.”
The opportunity will be part of Bight Gear’s goal to reach 100 million vertical feet of human-powered testing and use. Once deemed a far-fetched concept, Bight Gear is closing in on 98 million vertical feet climbed, as of November 2018. Winners will have the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help shape the next generation of products.
“Our readers love gear and they love mountains,” said Dennis Lewon, editor-in-chief of BACKPACKER magazine. “Project Vertical taps into both these passions and offers the winners an opportunity to be part of a unique alpine experience.”
Bight Gear apparel comes with an unprecedented 100K Promise: every product has gone through a minimum of 100,000 vertical feet of human-powered, mountain testing. This mentality coupled with Whittaker’s Rainier test lab makes Bight Gear unique in a sea of outdoor-apparel brands. Whittaker and his stable of 60+ RMI guides have spent the last two years developing the perfect alpine workwear. The guides spend a combined 10,000 days a year at or above treeline and directly contribute their end-user experience into the final designs.
Learn more about Bight Gear’s rigorous R&D processes and lineup at www.bightgear.com.
About Bight Gear
Life’s too damn short to spend a single minute of any adventure hot, cold, sweaty, or annoyed by poorly placed zippers. That’s why we take our job so seriously. Our mission is to build functional, durable alpine workwear that’s so dependable you’ll never think twice about wearing it. Sounds easy, but it isn’t. At its core, Bight is more than a business. It’s a calling and a labor of love, led by a small team of mountain-crazed craftspeople obsessively dedicated to one goal: reducing suffering in the mountains. www.bightgear.com
