Gossamer Gear Information Page
Mar 11, 2019
Gossamer Gear was founded by Glen Van Peski, initially as GVP gear in March 2000 then as Gossamer Gear in 2007. It all started with ultralight backpacks which Glen was making for himself, as word got around he started making them for other people, and as his reputation grew so did the company.
With Gossamer Gear its always been about ultra lightweight, functionality, durability and comfort, but keeping things light has always been Glen's number one focus. Paraphrasing Henry Ford they will tell you that you can have your backpack in any colour so long as its Grey - as colour doesn't affect performance they aren't interested in producing a range of colours for even their most popular models.
We are delighted to be able to offer Gossamer Gear packs to our customers as they are such a good fit with our company, they manage to achieve a high degree of comfort with packs that are pretty much lightest in class.
The video opposite tells you how the company started.
Key Products
Without doubt the two Key products that have driven Gossamer gear's success have been the Mariposa 60 litre pack introduced in 2007, and the Gorilla 40 litre pack introduced in 2009. Between these two packs you have a long distance load lugger in the Mariposa and a shorter trip backpack at a magical 40 litres.
The difference between these two volumes comes down to how many days food you will be carrying and what season you will be hiking in - if resupply is going to be every few days then with ultralight equipment 40 litres is all you need, if you are going to need to carry a weeks food, or extra kit for colder/winter conditions then 60 litres becomes the minimum.
These two packs have been refined over the years but have always had the key features that backpackers use day in, day out. There are other Gossamer Gear packs that do other things but these two are the key ones. In recent years Gossamer Gear have introduced shelters and trekking poles, some very interesting and lightweight products, though they are not producing them for retailer distribution at the moment.
We look forward to working with them and using Gossamer Gear kit in the years ahead.