The Top 10 Fastest Growing Brands in Outdoor Specialty

Here in Colorado you can’t go 100 feet without seeing a Cotopaxi coat.

Daughters love Cotopaxi; I think they like the color palettes more than caring about the function.

I wear a pair of On running shoes because our children deemed my Brooks to be too dorky, and walking around urban areas in black Salomon low hikers to be weird. I have seen their low hikers here and there; not sure how they are functionally, but they look the part as opposed to being a glorified pair of sneakers.

Vuori is in a similar vein to lululemon - they make pretty good clothes for walking outside and working out, though I’ve found comfort is their first priority, with function lagging a little. Their workout shirts (i have a trio of them, short sleeves, commonly use them on the recumbent bike or out on walks) are tremendously comfortable, but they aren’t the best at wicking moisture or avoiding stink. Had better luck with their joggers, long pants. They’re a solid option for cool weather hiking.

I’m happy to see Oboz doing well. I wore their shoes for a number of years, but i moved toward different options when I had some lower leg orthopedic issues, and the doctor suggested shoes with better support - which Salomon has provided me. I looked at Hoka’s low hikers recently b/c I wanted a low hiking shoe with no waterproof/breathable membrane for steamy summers. They’re interesting. They are also top dollar, couldn’t find any discounts, and some reviews suggested they can be mildly less stable/supportive than some other options. Reviewers did note that the Hoka trail shoes are quite a bit more stiff and less forgiving than Hoka’s running shoes, which have very thick shock-absorbing mid soles.

Also happy to see Darn Tough doing well. Not a new brand; I wore their socks for years, eventually meandered toward FITs merino wool socks instead because I like how they do the heel on their socks, and they’re also very durable, though perhaps not as much as Darn Tough - give them credit for building socks worthy of the brand name, they last a really, really long time while still functioning pretty well. (All my socks eventually wear out - the primary wear point, oddly enough, is at the heel, near the bottom of my Achilles tendon. Every pair of socks I’ve worn eventually wears very thin there. Maybe it’s the shape of the bones in my heel).

Does anyone hike with those big, heavy Stanley tumblers? One of our daughters and my spouse are big fans of them, but they wouldn’t use them for hiking. We mostly use Yeti or Hydroflask bottles in the summer, discarded all our hormone-altering hard plastic bottles, though on a recent trip, I used old-school Hunersdorff soft plastic bottles - the white, cloudy plastic I grew up with. Still have a few really old Nalgene bottles made from that; the Hunersdorff bottle are advantageous in a few ways; the plastic is fairly thick and pliable, with a reasonably wide opening, so they handle freezing and thawing during winter trips particularly well. The caps are also very easy to grip with gloves. If they have a downside, it’s that the top isn’t attached at all, though you can DIY that because the caps have small holes around the lip - you can thread a thin piece of sterling rope through the cap, tie a small knot, and attached the other end of the cord around the rim of the mouth of the bottle.

Have you tried Hoka or ON? Very comfortable trail shoes. Both even have mid-level hikers. La Sportiva is another great company. Not new, but new to me is Mammut. They’re fast becoming a favorite of mine. Great shoes and packs. Mammut is making a push in the US market. Come winter, I’m going to purchase one of their down jackets. There are some really good outdoor gear and apparel companies out there. Nice to have options.

DR