GoLite Named BACKPACKER Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award

SALT LAKE CITY, UT,– GoLite has been honored with 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 GoLite 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.

GoLite’s extensive use of Tier 1 recycled fabrics won the “Green Award” and was one of only 15 innovative products honored with a 2010 Backpacker Editors’ Choice Award. GoLite has replaced virgin, petro-chemical based materials in 100% of its main pack fabrics, travel luggage and in all of its sleeping bag collections with Tier 1 recycled nylons and polyesters, which have been shown to have up to 70% (for nylon) and up to 80% (for polyester) reduction in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions while performing on par with their conventional alternatives.

GoLite’s product director Kevin Joyce said, “We’re honored Backpacker has chosen to recognize our use of Tier 1 recycled fabrics. Our integration of these fabrics significantly advances our goal of achieving sustainability without sacrificing our commitment to high performance apparel and equipment.”

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.

About GoLite
GoLite is the premier global manufacturer of lightweight, high performance, sustainable apparel and equipment designed specifically for outdoor athletes. GoLite is dedicated to transforming the outdoor athlete’s trail experience by designing and developing simple, beautiful high performance gear that lets people experience nature more with less. GoLite is committed to building a truly sustainable business, one that minimizes its environmental impacts and manufactures its products in factories that are fair, safe, and non-discriminatory. GoLite products are available in 23 countries worldwide. For more information visit www.golite.com or call 888.5.GoLite.

About Backpacker:
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.

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