Wilderness Equipment - Winter 2010

Welcome

Everything you might wish to know about WE backpacks, daypacks, tents and gaiters can be found in this website. Whether you are in the market for new gear or wanting advice about a twenty year old WE pack our hope is that you can find all the answers in this one resource, as they say, '...straight from the horse's mouth'. This page continues with a run-down on what you can expect to find...

News!

The new-for-2010 TECTITE TENT range is in stores now! Go to the Super-Light tent category for details on these innovative products. We have been using the pre-production development models personally for some years but reports are now coming in from satisfied customers with their own Tectites. These tents are perfect for central and northern Australia at this time of the year but we had a report in recently from the Overland track in Tassie where a T1UL saw snowfall as well as high winds and came out smiling.  

We would like to repeat this message: "all coated, waterproof fabrics used on WE tents are now specified with high-grade, POLYETHER-based polyurethane coating chemistry". Our tent spec tables now show this as 'PE coating'. We are the only tent brand in the world to accept the additional cost and do this across our entire tent range. Most don't use it at all. This premium coating formulation provides a much greater resistance to hydrolysis, the sticky degradation that occurs in constantly damp or humid conditions, a particular problem in tropical climates. Our products are for use worldwide. We take our commitment to extended durability seriously.

 

Products

Three clicks into the right-side menu bar gets you to all the important product information. The short product descriptions will help narrow your focus. Click on 'specifications' to see details and use the printer friendly button to get all the product info onto paper (if you need to). Links on every product page lead you directly to the instructions for choosing sizes, use and care information, and so on. 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

An intrinsic and important part of any product's quality is the service available after you have made your purchase. This responsibility dawned on us back in 1977, the first time we stitched a WE label to something we had made. Well, here we are in 2010! A long product life translates directly into 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

Gear freaks rejoice! Links on every product page lead you to more technical information than you may like to read.  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. You could also look along the head menu bar, at 'Other Stuff'. In here you can find other interesting 'random' content, less directly related to products. Take the page 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 depend greatly on wild country, the mountains and on the ocean to provide energy and direction in our lives. Through the WE product range we see ourselves playing a part in these aspects of your life. That's a privilege and another important source of satisfaction. Thankyou!

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

Ian Maley

Founder and Designer