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If you have spent any time researching ultralight backpacking gear, the name Gossamer Gear has almost certainly come up. It shows up in trail forums, gear review sites, and thru-hiker blogs with a consistency that is hard to ignore. But unlike many outdoor brands built from investor capital and marketing budgets, Gossamer Gear has a different kind of origin story, one rooted in a dad trying to make hiking more enjoyable for his kid. That story matters, and it goes a long way toward explaining why this brand still earns the loyalty it does today.
How a Backpacking Dad Started One of the Best Ultralight Gear Brands
It started on the trail. Glen Van Peski, a consulting civil engineer from Carlsbad, California, began joining his eldest son Brian on Boy Scout backpacking trips and quickly became frustrated with how much their gear weighed. The packs they were carrying clocked in at seven pounds before a single item was added. Glen decided to build something better himself, starting with a design he called the G1, then the G2, and continuing to iterate until he had something worth sharing.
The first packs were sewn by Glen’s wife Francie and other women in the neighborhood, and the company operated under the name GVP Gear in those early days. There was no grand business plan here. Glen has reflected that he never really saw it as starting a company. For him, it was about showing people how carrying less on the trail could actually unlock more of the experience they were looking for.
Word spread the old-fashioned way. Happy hikers told other hikers. The customer waiting list grew long enough that Glen eventually had to send his G4 model off to a manufacturer for the company’s first production run of 50 packs. The family helped build a website to keep up with demand.
From Garage Operation to a Real Brand With Real Growth
In early 2004, GVP Gear became Gossamer Gear, and the product lineup expanded beyond packs to include shelters, stoves, and rain gear. Growth, however, came with real pressure on Glen’s personal life and bandwidth. He considered selling everything off and closing up shop entirely.
Instead, a loyal customer suggested bringing on equity partners. That recommendation led to Grant Sible joining the company in December 2005 as President. Grant, an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker himself, relocated the company’s operations to Austin, Texas and took over day-to-day management while Glen remained as Chairman of the Board, focused on product development and long-term vision.
That transition was a turning point. Gossamer Gear went from a passion project that could have quietly disappeared to a properly run outdoor brand with the infrastructure to grow. Glen’s fingerprints stayed on the products. Grant brought the business discipline. It was a combination that worked.
What Gossamer Gear Actually Makes and Why It Resonates
The product lineup today covers the core needs of a serious backcountry hiker. Gossamer Gear produces framed and frameless backpacks, ultralight shelters, carbon fiber trekking poles, foam pads, umbrellas, and a range of trail accessories. Their fabrics are custom-made and custom-designed with a clear focus on keeping weight down without sacrificing durability where it counts.
The brand has been featured in Backpacker Magazine, National Geographic Adventure Magazine, Wirecutter, Outdoor Gear Lab, and the New York Times, among others. That kind of media coverage does not happen by accident. It happens because the gear performs on actual trails carried by actual hikers who then talk about it.
The customer relationship is core to how the brand operates. As their Head of Product and Marketing Jon Schmid has noted, Gossamer Gear’s community takes genuine ownership of the gear, providing critical field testing feedback that directly shapes how products evolve. That feedback loop between brand and customer is baked into the culture, not bolted on as a marketing afterthought.
The Philosophy Behind “Take Less. Do More.”
At Gossamer Gear, “take less. do more.” goes beyond a slogan. It serves as a guiding principle to eliminate the unnecessary and focus on what genuinely serves the customer, the community, and wild places. That ethos shows up in their gear design, their business practices, and their sustainability commitments.
The company dedicates 1% of all web sales to partner organizations, including groups like Black Outside Inc., Explore Austin, Travis County Search and Rescue, and the Continental Divide Trail Coalition. They are also making moves on the environmental side, shifting toward recycled fabrics and PFAS-free coatings, and their Jet line is now made from Global Recycled Standard certified 100% recycled nylon.
This is not performative sustainability. Gossamer Gear has been asking themselves whether a decision is the right thing to do since the company’s earliest days. The sustainability work is an extension of that same question applied to materials and manufacturing.
Why Hikers Keep Choosing Gossamer Gear Over Bigger Brands
There are no shortage of gear companies competing for the ultralight market. So what keeps shoppers coming back to Gossamer Gear specifically?
Part of it is the history. Knowing that a brand started because one guy wanted to make hiking better for his son, and that it grew entirely because people loved what they bought and told their friends, creates a different kind of trust than a brand that launched with a large marketing push.
Part of it is the product focus. Gossamer Gear does not try to be everything to everyone. They make gear for people who take trail time seriously and want equipment that has been thought through carefully rather than designed to look good on a shelf.
And part of it is the community. The Gossamer Gear trail family, as they call it, is genuinely engaged. Ambassadors and longtime customers contribute to product development, share routes, and champion access to the outdoors for people who might not see themselves as traditional hikers. The company’s stated goal is to inspire and equip everyone to get outside, and that inclusive framing matters in a space that has historically skewed toward a narrow demographic.
What to Expect When You Shop Gossamer Gear
If you are browsing their site for the first time, a few things are worth knowing. Their packs span a range of carry volumes and configurations, with options for both framed, like their beloved Mariposa, and frameless setups depending on how minimal you want to go. Their shelters lean into single and double wall designs using DCF (GG Whisper) and similar lightweight materials. The LT5 trekking poles are a perennial favorite for thru-hikers looking for carbon fiber performance without a massive price tag.
Customer service is a genuine strength. The brand has built its reputation in part on standing behind what they sell, and the warranty and returns process reflects that commitment. Free US shipping kicks in at $150, which is easy to hit given that their packs are the core purchase for most shoppers.
If ultralight backpacking is part of your life, or you are looking to get into it, Gossamer Gear is one of those brands that consistently earns its place in the conversation. The gear is honest, the company history is genuine, and the community it has built over more than two decades is the kind that only forms around products that actually work on trail.