Wilderness Equipment 2009

Welcome!

Here it is, your reference point for everything about everything WE: Backpacks, daypacks, tents and gaiters. In today's global, competitive world it is unusual to find such an informative, comprehensive resource.

Products

Go direct to the right side-bar menu and drop down into the categories that interest you. A few products appear in more than one category. Scan the short product descriptions and the bullet-point spec tables. These will help you quickly narrow the field. Delving deeper will bring you to the detailed descriptions and, as they are added, photos of the product in use. Go to the printer-friendly page button if you like to read in bed (or think a laptop at the coffee shop is uncool). Links on every product page lead you directly to the instructions for use and care. We have over 30 years experience making gear and using it. Product performance is at the core of what we do. Innovation over immitation, experience over wishful thinking, excellence over mediocrity.

Service

Back in 1977, the excitement of making our first products was quickly followed by the realisation that we now had a responsibility into the future for their service and repair. A long product life translates directly in a reduced call on increasingly scarce (and expensive) resources. Besides the comprehensive advice on use and care, I have included detailed instructions for common DIY repairs for all products, past and present. If a zip isn't closing properly on your well-worn backpack or tent you can discover the usual reasons why, and how you might be able to fix it yourself. Sea To Summit, the WE brand partners and distributors, provide follow-up service. If you need a measure of our commitment send STS a tricky question. More than likely, the reply you get will be detailed and come directly from me.

Information Resource

On every product page you can find direct links to a wide range of "background" information relevent to the product, everything in fact. If you work in retail sales, teach in outdoor education or are just plain curious, you may find valuable perspectives in our more technical explanations of design and materials choices, all firmly grounded in the realities of travelling the back-country, carrying loads and depending on lightweight shelters. Look also at the head menu bar, at the Other Stuff tab. In here you can find other interesting content, less directly related to products, "random", some might say. Take the one about Staying Comfortable in the Outdoors. Marketing departments and journalists regularly invoke references to every-day matters of physics, stuff about staying warm and dry. Here they all are, collected together and straightened up, ideas that separate fact from fantasy. With them you will be able to do more with less.

Behind the Brand

What about the big questions? How do we see our business responsibilities in the areas of social accountability, impact on the natural enviroment, limited resources and global warming? With one life each to live, we do not draw a line between our business and private activities. The resources required to make a difference, the commitment of time and finances, flow freely back and forth across such a line. If you are interested in where we have come from, and where we are going, look up "Behind the Brand" under Other Stuff.

Finally, like many of our friends, we find great energy in wild country, in the mountains and on the ocean. Through the WE product range we see ourselves playing a part in these aspects of your life. That's a privledge and another important source of satisfaction. Thankyou!

Keep fit and have fun! We'll see you out there.

Ian Maley

Founder and Designer