Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (14 page)

Use unflavored vodka to clean off eyeglasses, camera lenses, binoculars, or your rifle scope.

MAKE A MUSCLE RUB

Fill a glass jar with lavender flowers, then top off with vodka. Let steep in the sun three days, then strain through a coffee filter. Voila! A soothing linament—or a really gross cocktail.

I sat down with Evan to talk gear, motivations, and how he and Scot got into this business.

EVAN:
I’ve always been an engineer at heart. I started sewing outdoor gear when I was 12. Most of it I didn’t use for very long because my fabrication skills weren’t up to snuff! I majored in anthropology in college, but I was excited by the Web’s potential for empowering people in very fundamental ways. I’m a Luddite at heart and was never in love with the technology itself, just the ways that it could make the world better. I was in software management for a decade and a half, which trained me to design things more systematically. I also learned a lot about small start-up businesses, because those were the types of companies I gravitated toward.

When my oldest daughter was about to go into school, I decided to move my family to a more rural town. That was pretty much death for my software career, though it stayed on life support another eight years. But having ready access to the backcountry opened up a part of myself that had been closed for so long that I’d forgotten it existed. A Diné friend of mine calls it “getting back to my natural way.”

While underemployed in my new town, I learned that meaningful side projects help keep your sanity and spirits up while job hunting. Fabric is cheap, and it takes time to make a nice piece of outdoor gear: Perfect! I ended up turning out quite a few pieces of kit that I used regularly. Other people saw and wanted their own. I thought to myself, why not?

From the beginning, I knew I needed someone more pragmatic and detail-oriented than myself involved. Scot was a natural choice. He also brings his own common-sense outlook and “why can’t it do this” questions to the design process.

And Hill People Gear was born.

Hill People Gear has a fleet of loyal customers, not excluding its creators. I asked Scot and Evan about their favorite and most popular pieces of gear.

SCOT:
Our most popular item is the Kit Bag, and of those probably the Original sells the best—it’s the most versatile. The Kit Bag really fills a niche—while there are some excellent chest holsters and belt-mounted options out there, as well as some other chest rigs available currently and historically, there is nothing quite like the Kit Bag. It allows ready access to a handgun and gear—whether or not you have a pack on and no matter what you’re doing. However, I have to say that the Mountain Serape is probably my favorite piece of gear. It doesn’t get used on an almost-daily basis like my Kit Bag, but it just plain works better than anything else out there, and it fulfills so many roles with its multiple configurations. If I could only have one piece of our gear, it would be a hard choice between those two.

EVAN:
My favorite tends to change based on what I’m using at a particular time—and I don’t even remember life without my Kit Bag. That being said, I’ve really been loving my Tarahumara lately. It’s funny, because I think of the Tara as a luxury as packs go, but when you put smart design and our shoulder harness together you get a really nice little pack that disappears on your back. I also think it is the most aesthetically pleasing thing I’ve done. Since I’m more of an engineer than a designer, I appreciate that aspect of it.

I asked the brothers if they ever get suggestions that they’d never follow up on.

SCOT:
We are constantly looking for better ways to do something, but we balance all the data points, not just a single one, and some people tend to get caught up in one aspect—like the color. We want our products to work for everyone, which is why you see good solid earth tones that can blend well in multiple environments. Ranger Green is our most popular color by a wide margin.

EVAN:
If I hear another critic say, “If you switched to this other material you’d save 3 ounces,” I’m going to lose it. Not really, but I fantasize about it. The answer that we’re too polite to give those folks is that if they spent as much time using their gear in the real world as they did reading the specs, their opinion would count for more.

For us, ease of use and versatility are our primary goals with any design—not data points. It takes experience to recognize those attributes, and they’re going to vary in value. We’re not building gear that specs out so the internet pundits like it. We’re building gear that works well. When we get positive feedback from guys who are truly living with the backcountry, who aren’t still trying to “cheat the mountain,” I’m satisfied. As our friends at Lester River Bushcraft say, “Shut up and get it dirty.”

Whether you own a handgun, a rifle, or a shotgun, keeping any firearm in your home is a very serious responsibility—but it could save your life in the right situation. You should consider various factors when choosing a firearm, such as ease of use, reliability, and ammunition. The most powerful, top-of-the-line gun will be of little use if it’s hard to maintain, troublesome to carry or operate, or if it runs out of ammo to shoot.

Whatever choice you make in this process, be sure you know everything about properly operating and maintaining your firearms, and keep them safely and securely stored when not in use.