Outdoor Vitals: Breaking New Trail On A Mission To Live Ultralight
Photos by Kim Fuller.
As a young outdoorsman growing up in Utah, Tayson Wittaker only had access to the least expensive gear options for trips with family, scouts and athletics. He said it was miserable; even into his college years, he couldn’t afford the brands with top technology and the retail prices that reflected it. Yet, his interest in the outdoors only grew, especially once he learned of the innovative options emerging in the world of ultralight backpacking.
“I just realized how much better some of this gear was that is available, but I had been using Walmart gear my whole life,” shares Wittaker, who founded Outdoor Vitals in 2013. “So, as I started to tap into that, I couldn’t believe the difference and the experience. My biggest thought then was that if people understood this and if people had some of this gear, they’d spend so much more time outdoors.”
Ten years later in May 2023, I backpacked the West Rim Trail in Zion National Park with Wittaker and the Outdoor Vitals team, along with a handful of other journalists. This dramatic desert terrain is a backyard playground for the OV crew, as their office is in Cedar City, Utah, less than 30 minutes away by car. Monthly research and development trips get the Outdoor Vitals team into the field to test prototype gear consistently; in 2022 alone, the team hiked more than 1,400 miles on the clock.
Our spring adventure revealed a lot of remaining snow in the area, more than what’s typical for early May in Zion, so I opted to trek wearing the Satu Adventure Pants and the Altitude Sun Hoodie. Temps began to rise as we walked into the midday hours, with the sun dipping in and out from cloud cover, yet my temperature stayed steady. The CS40 Ultra Backpack I carried was packed full, yet all the contents in it — overnight essentials like the Fortuis Trekking Pole Backpacking Tent and Stormloft Down Topquilt, along with necessary layers, including the NovaUL Ultralight Jacket and Tushar Rain Jacket — are all made to be as light as possible while still offering optimal performance. We were on the trail for 8 hours that day and hiked 15 miles to our permitdesignated campsite.
As we settled into camp, Wittaker offered his assistance in setting up my tent, and I gladly accepted. This one-person shelter is designed with details that only avid ultralight backpackers would know to include. It weighs in at a slight 1 pound, 9 ounces, and once all the corners were pulled out and secured tightly, it fit my sleeping bag and down quilt quite comfortably, with an ample area for my hiking boots and pack in the vestibule.
As founder and CEO of the company, Wittaker is just as connected to these products as Outdoor Vitals product design director Brigham Crane. Crane has become the brains behind integrating innovative tech into every piece, yet Wittaker and every OV team member has tested all the products immensely. If a piece isn’t perfect, it doesn’t go into the market until it is.
“We look at what the product needs to be and focus in on how to achieve that,” explains Crane. He and I shared a conversation at the base of Zion’s famously-known Angels Landing while watching a rain storm move in around us. “And, probably the most important thing we do is test it ourselves. I’ve been backpacking my whole life. We’re not going to sell something that we don’t have a strong experience level in.”
Performance is at the forefront of the Outdoor Vitals design process, and since the brand was founded on and has maintained a direct-to-consumer sales model, they are able to get the highest quality materials into the gear, truly customize their products and set prices that aren’t influenced by retail markup.
After testing almost every piece of Outdoor Vitals gear on this Zion overnight and then continuing to use many pieces at home in my everyday life (I wear the NovaUL Ultralight Jacket to commute to early morning gym sessions, and the Tushar Rain Jacket is my constant backcountry companion on hikes, trail runs and mountain bikes), the brand’s performance promise stands true as much as their commitment to direct customer connection.
Wittaker and I chatted as he drove me to the airport to catch a morning flight back to Colorado. The conversation was a reminder that fewer and fewer companies are private these days, especially well-known brands. While one of OV’s core values is to “live ultralight,” Outdoor Vitals has had a heavy lift in gaining share in the outdoor market while staying true to their mission through a more bootstrapped business approach. The load is getting lighter as they’ve established a strong and growing base of loyal customers, continued expansion of topnotch ultralight gear options for backpacking and more, and made a 1% revenue share commitment to various sustainability initiatives, all while forging a bright new path for the outdoor industry.
“By not going through venture capital options, we’ve always had to be crafty with crowdfunding and these different things to scale,” explains Wittaker. “That leaves us to focus on one single stakeholder, which is you, the end user.”
Originally published in the Fall 2023 issue of Spoke+Blossom.