"There was a time when we had a lot of time free, so we stumbled into the outdoors. We worked in outdoor shops, saved some cash, and got ourselves kitted out. We travelled, did some routes and life was good. Then our kit started falling apart, we were no longer students and we realised the cost of replacing it. As we waited to pick up yet another x-xtra large fleece in the sales we patched up our waterproofs and wore an extra jumper in our smelly sleeping bags.

During this time we realised that the passing years had taught us something, we had the experience to create something new.

And somewhere therein lays the real story of how Alpkit was born.

Born out of a passion for the outdoors and not accepting the price of getting superior clothing and equipment that's as good as the best in our sacks. Four ordinary people trying to make some thing extraordinary. And why Alpkit? It's just a name... we go to the alps, we climb, we ride, we paddle, we swim, we run, we board, we visit our in laws.. we produce kit.. we didn't want it to be complicated"

Alpkit is founded on friendship, a love of adventure and a deep frustration at the high cost of top-end gear. Our innovative business is the UKs only direct-to-consumer performance brand for those that run, hike, climb, camp, swim and bike.

Now with over 200 staff, Alpkit has grown by almost 50% per annum compound over the last decade. It started online in 2004 and has opened 10 stores in the last 6 years from Bristol and Kingston-upon-Thames in the south to Inverness in the North.

Carbon neutral, a living wage foundation employer and Certfiied B Corp, we gives 10% of profit and 1% of all sales to direct action grass roots projects that help people get outside through Alpkit Foundation, its independent charity.

Go Nice Places Do Good Things is more than a tag line, it captures the belief of business as a force for good and that elitism and expense should never be a barrier to time spent outdoors.

Voted brand of the year by TGO Magazine and Country Walking, Ethical Consumer Mag Best Buy, their entire range was awarded Product of the Year by Singletrack magazine.

Alpkit and Sonder is independent, co-founder led and owned with over 4,000 customer and staff shareholders from two successful crowd fund raises.

We love to be outdoors, talk about being outdoors and hearing about people being outdoors. We love the mountains, we love the lakes, the forested trails. We truly believe getting outdoors is good; I can’t remember when we first coined the phrase Go Nice Places do Good Things but it stuck.

It is a great privilege to have been tasked with writing this page. Col or Nick could equally have made a great job… sorry, if you are new to Alpkit I have got ahead of myself.

Col?, Nick? and who am I? Here is a very brief recap… Alpkit was formed in 2004 by Col, Nick, Jim and Kenny (that’s me). Our early history is out there for you to see, Col did a great review back in 2010. If you have time to spare you can even work back through the Waybackwhen machine.

The why behind Alpkit really started so much earlier. Nope, it didn’t drop out of a spreadsheet, on a set date, with a packet full of funding to propel it into the world. Actually it was launched on a shoestring backed by years of finding adventure in the mountains, and that’s the truth.

I dare say we were also seduced by the innovations that made everything just so damn cool. Mysterious fabrics that could actually breathe, sleeping mats that inflated all by themselves and ripstop nylons which when stretched over bendy poles could provide shelter on top of an inhospitable mountain top.

You can’t get enough of that kind of stuff.

Mix that in with a spoonful of romanticism from earlier times, stories of absolute heroes who made journeys to remote and unexplored lands, committing self-supported, self-suffering adventures, discovering all of the nice places, doing all the great things and publishing awesome coffee table books.

Yes, Alpkit existed way back when, it was just that it took until 2004 before it finally got captured in a squash court sized unit at the foot of Mount Ilkeston.

So where is Alpkit today? The company has grown, it has outgrown the squash court and shards of ice no longer fall on our heads in winter. Our resilience may have surprised some, but hiking up mountains in all weathers teaches you a lot about pig headed perseverance.

I really believe Alpkit has survived these years thanks to the support of our customers and their stories. We simply have the best customers. The relationships forged with our customers has always been direct.

While the fundamental ethics and values of Alpkit today have not changed over time it is now a much greater team effort. The team is many and spread out all over the country.

This is in an industry that genuinely cares about how it behaves and how it operates. I am proud Alpkit is part of this, and proactive in leading change in areas such as single use plastics, phasing out.

Many of you reading this will have accompanied this company on its journey. Some of you are still wearing stuff from the early days and that makes us enormously happy.

So thanks to David for inviting me to write this piece, thank you for visiting, enjoy your stay.

Kenny
#gnpdgt