Kifaru

What products are listed for this advertiser?

Made in America Accessories, Made in America Ammo Belts, American Made Armor Grip Packs, American Made Back Pouch, Made in the USA Backcountry Sleds, Made in America Backpacks / Back Packs, Made in the USA Camping Stoves, Made in the USA Hunting Gear, American Made Hunting Packs, American Made Pack Belts, American Made Performance Fleeces, Made in America Sawtooth Tents, Made in America Sleeping Bags, Made in the USA Tactical Hoodies, Made in America Tarps, and Made in America Tents.

Gear for Life. Ultimate, long term value.
We've been crafting back country gear since 1978, and as far as we know, all our products, even decades old, are still in service, they just don't wear out.
Being a small company, we keep a critical eye on quality control for the highest performance. No foreign sweat shops, no passing the buck. Every dollar you spend with Kifaru stays right here in the United States, instead of fueling foreign economies. The taxes reaped from our sales and salaries support our infrastructure and communities - not those in Asia or Latin America. This gear will outperform and outlast anything made offshore - period. Drilex thoroughly trumps Coolmax, as genuine 1000d Cordura trumps all

Colorado, once a Mecca of backpacking innovation was home to companies like Lowe Alpine, Gerry and of course, Mountainsmith. Once those shops sent their production offshore, they gifted us a large pool of expert, industrial sewers to choose from, among them, many Mountainsmith pack builders who are long term (decades) staff - that says a lot for a company! Buy this gear with confidence - it's based on three decades of knowing what it takes, and has been thoroughly torture tested.The skill and dedication of our American staff ensures we build the very best gear with a continuity unmatched anywhere.

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Being a direct-to-customer firm, there is no need to out-glitz the gear on a dealer's wall - allowing us to design for what actually does the best job of comfortably carrying very heavy loads in trail-less terrain in the middle of nowhere.

Kifaru has succeeded in the marketplace via word of mouth - the offspring of mountaineering technology meeting the demands of hunters and soldiers and Opening the Outback for those who seek adventure on foot.

Integrated Systems Approach.
Coordination is the key to success, so our products are designed to be as versatile as possible, and to integrate with other products you might already own.
Our Integrated Systems Approach lets everything fit everything else, and is expected to function superbly at as many tasks as possible - Modular and Multifunctional is a slogan around here.

This is costly gear. Nevertheless, serious users quickly acknowledge that the cost-to-benefit ratio of their Kifaru gear is quite high - the gear, quite simply, is well worth the investment. Can you buy gear for less money? Absolutely! But, at what cost?

climber2Brains
Patrick Smith continues to be an avid backcountry hunter, fisherman and rambling backpacker, while constantly tinkering, crafting and inventing (Smith has thirteen patents) better ways to Open the Outback.

This real world designer spends a third of the year in the middle of nowhere, and many more days wandering on local mountains evaluating gear. He's been doing it for more than fifty years so he knows a thing or two about living out there.

His town-based office is a place to connect. The real work happens in the Outback, usually in trail-less terrain with everything needed for living and working on his back. Equipped with a special hand stapler, scissors and a kit of raw materials, the man literally designs in the field. Tough testing is done, feedback is immediate, and changes are made on the spot. This process goes on for typically two years, often much longer. When Patrick finally releases a product it has undergone many hundreds of hours of intense field use and modification and is simply as good as it can be for the task it will perform.

The Kifaru legacy has deep roots, starting with a boyhood passion for the outdoors that grew into the founding of the Colorado School of Outdoor Living (nominally a Survival School, but also teaching backpacking and winter ski mountaineering) and later as a Nordic Ski Guide. Patrick found commercial gear inadequate for his Guiding activities and made his own. Clients clamored to buy it so a new company, Mountainsmith, was born. The first product was the Smith Sled--a svelte sure-tracking wilderness sled that solved the first of many challenges. Thousands of those first sleds are still in use today--a testimony to their usefulness as well as durability. Following closely were the first Lumbar Packs, with new-departure designs that focused on extreme comfort and fit in completely new ways. Larger packs followed, all demonstrating body-hugging fit and a unique ability to transfer weight to the hips--instead of shoulders--and therefore the ability to wrangle brutal loads like no other. The fledgling Mountainsmith company became world-renowned in the mountaineering community. Venerable Mountainsmith packs such as the Frostfire, Bugaboo and Tyrol--to name a few--are still in use decades later, and are known for their handcrafted, no-holds-barred durability, modularity and incredible fit. They became a crucial tool in many a quest for the likes of Everest, Denali, and Antarctica. climber2

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The Company was managed so that Patrick could do what he does best and loves most--spending huge chunks of time in the field and inventing better gear for literally living out there. He spent a great deal of the time living off the land with a firearm and fishing rod. His yen for real living in wild places brought the very first man-carryable woodstove-heated shelters into existence. His famous tipis, with accompanying wood stoves, were introduced in 1989, and most are still providing portable homes in wild, cold places around the world.

Mountainsmith provided fertile turf for many groundbreaking ideas--ideas too good not to be brought to the attention of Patrick's fellow hunters, especially for those elite hunters who wanted to hunt up there among 'em--backcountry style. Hunting pack technology was light years behind that of the mountaineering world, so, not too long after selling Mountainsmith, Patrick once again paved the way by creating Kifaru in 1997, and at last attended to his most passionately loved backcountry activity. Prior to that backpack hunting meant modifying an existing mountaineering pack or, worse, making do with antiquated external frame torture racks that inevitably fell apart under the extreme loads and conditions successful backcountry hunting imposes.

Soldiering demands the same ruggedness, fit and huge-load capability from backpacks, but has its own special feature needs. Shortly after the atrocities of 9/11/2001 Mel Terkla approached Patrick about adapting Kifaru Hunting packs to military applications. Mel, a former military man, had exceptional insight into military load-out requirements and is a world class designer in his own right. Patrick's skills--ergonomics, modularity, versatility--blended perfectly with Mel's and the result has been what a great many elite warriors consider the best military pack systems in the world.



packIn large part Kifaru was set up as a Design Shop?no dealers, build gear right here in Colorado, and build what Patrick never could do in a long career of building gear for a more conventional market. Doing hunting packs properly was the first step. Building the first true man-carryable homes for the outback were added from the Mountainsmith mildays. Military packs came along when the nation was attacked.

Since then Patrick has addressed two backcountry essentials in the way he's been waiting to do for decades: sleeping bags that do more than just encase one for sleeping, and clothing that is built specifically to accommodate backpacks and perform optimally in terms of weight-to-warmth ratio and go-anywhere field worthiness. The company rests happily on the simple premise of taking what it selects as very important gear and making it the best in the world.

For extensive backcountry info and articles check our our many essays.

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Patrick Smith, President, Kifaru International

Questions? Don't hesitate to call. 1-800-222-6139.

The following is a reply from Kifaru to our question – "Are your products Made in the USA?"

How do you know the products you have listed are Made in the USA?
Before including products in our database we review the advertiser’s website and/or contact them to ascertain the origin of their products. Some advertisers sell both Made in USA products and foreign ones. Therefore we highly recommend you review FAQ 2.

We immediately investigate any complaints regarding deceptive Country of Origin claims. If we determine an advertiser's claim is not truthful we will immediately remove the product/s from our database and suspend our relationship with the Company making the claim.

To document your complaint, email us by using our Contact Us page. We can only respond to complaints that have been submitted in writing.

What does Made in USA mean?
There is no law requiring most products to be labeled Made In USA, or have any other disclosure about the amount of U.S. content. However, for job creation purposes (see our Big Secret tab), if you have a choice between an imported product and one with no country of origin on its label, choose the product without a country of origin over the imported one. This is true because the product without the country origin on its label has at least some American labor in its content and the imported one most likely does not.

Note: Imported products are required by law to country of origin on their label and products partially Made In USA do not. To answer this question completely reviewing our Labeling Tips 1, 2 & 3. These tips are accessible from scrolling to the bottom of our home page clicking Browse All Tips button.