Saturday

This Saturday (11/28/2020) marks the annual #SmallBusinessSaturday, a day to support small businesses and communities across the country by shopping “small”. Many of these 7 businesses are based in Colorado and the surrounding region and others represent east coast and middle America love and creativity. But, all of these these businesses share one thing in common: a passion for the outdoors. So this #SmallBusinessSaturday, follow along in their journey and consider supporting them this holiday season!

HEC Studio

Sarah Haske Buchanan and Lucy (her 40-foot “dream machine”) are the smile-inducing duo behind HEC Studio, a custom hat company based in Fairplay, Colorado. Celebrating their 5th anniversary this year, HEC Studio creates custom hats – truckers, 5-panel, classy brimmed, and more! – featuring unique artwork designed by Sarah and full of empowering energy. Follow the HEC Studio IG for all of Sarah’s positive, love-spreading energy and a little dose of Truxton (the feline supervisor) antics.

Oveja Negra

Bikes are life in my book and without them, our world would not be the same. Thankfully, Oveja Negra, creator of “top shelf bikepacking gear” helps fuel the bike-loving stoke. From their bike-specific bags to their everyday packs, Oveja Negra gear truly is top shelf as well as fun and functional. Founders, Lane and Monty Willson along with their stellar team post everything from whack packs to witty black sheep shenanigans, so follow along if that’s your thing…and even if it’s not. You won’t be disappointed.

Wildbird Threads

Owner, Elizabeth Wheeler Bailey, cares about the environment, the organizations that support it and the people inspired by it. Wildbird Threads is a southern Colorado-based apparel company and family-owned and operated business. They collaborate with artists to showcase their nature-inspired work on sustainable materials and apparel printed with eco-friendly inks. Their IG is inspiring and offers a fresh breath of the “real” – real places, real families and real passion.

Vedavoo

Fly fishing enthusiasts, unite! Vedavoo is the brainchild of founder, Scott Hunter and the result of him and his team including master builder, Meredith St. George; material prep/shipping lead, Tim Herbert; and social media guru Justin Carfagnini. Their gear is bomb-proof – from reel covers to duffels and day packs and their IG is inspiring. The grass roots-curated content not only features their innovative gear, but most importantly, it showcases the people who put it to the test.

Big Hollow Designs

Sustainability-minded and handcrafted in Wyoming, Big Hollow Designs is the mastermind behind WhatVest. Owners/Creators Nadia and Josh Burton and Jamie Lindsey are committed to reducing their carbon footprint by creating the WhatVest with recycled materials (many of which are manufactured in the USA) and working toward zero waste (by using scraps as fill in dog beds). The WhatVest is as comfortable as it is technically capable and their instagram is fun and stoke-inducing!

Brinkley Messick Art

There is something really special about the 104,185 square miles that is Colorado. Whether you’re a born-and-bred local, transplant, or annual migrator, there is something here that draws you in and keeps the mountains, valleys and everything in between in your heart. Thankfully, Brink Messick also captures that essence in his artwork Which ranges from hand-painted up-cycled patches to landscapes painted on reclaimed wood to downtown murals. His IG showcases who he is (creator of art, worker of trails, father, advocate of the environment), what he does and the places that inspires him (and so many others).

Ski Pulk

Co-owners, Grant and Ashley are the Minnesota-based husband and wife team behind Ski Pulk. They create pulks and gear sleds “to help make winter accessible to more people, regardless of their experience, size or location”. Our family – and many other people, as showcased in their socials – use their sleds on quick day trips and overnight backcountry excursions all across the country. If winter adventuring is your thing – and gets the people you’re shopping for this season excited – follow along for some winter adventure inspiration. (Image courtesy of brinkleymessicart.com)

If that’s not enough to quench your small biz thirst, check out some of our other favorites! From small batch coffee roasters to sustainably sources wool apparel, from fly rod builders to fish-themed, women-owned fishing gear, these small businesses are working hard to bring you great gear, food and more!

Ridge Merino

SaraBella Fly Fishing

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Camping Tips, Tricks and Adventures

I moved to New York in the late 1960s, and for me it was the best of two worlds. I grew up in Pennsylvania and hunted, fished and trapped in the Keystone State until I graduated from college. I no longer trap but after more than 50 years, I still hunt there every season. When I moved to the Southern Tier I felt it was a dream come true because living so close to the Pennsylvania border I could hunt and fish in two states, with the opening day of deer, turkey and fishing season all coming on different dates.

However, there was one little, okay, call it one big hitch in my in my hunting plans. Both the New York and Pennsylvania deer season opening dates came on a Monday and because of my job, I never, not ever, got go hunting on the opening day of deer season in either state. For my entire working career, I wished deer season could open on a Saturday. Only after retiring did my wish come true.

After retiring almost 20 years ago, it no longer mattered to me when opening day occurred. I could and did go anytime. All this changed, of course when, in an effort to include more hunters, both states moved the opening day of the regular firearms season to a Saturday, and not everyone was happy. It didn’t matter to me of course because I could go anytime. And besides, if it allowed more hunters to get out, I was glad for them. What could possibly go wrong?

On the evening before this past season’s opener on Saturday, those of us who are avid bowhunters found ourselves in a tree with our archery tackle on Friday and then having to go home and trade in our bows for rifles and our camouflage clothing for blaze orange in order to go out the following morning. Worse yet, it left no time to remove our tree stands and climbing ladders prior to the Saturday morning opener. The transition seemed hectic to say the least. Clothes had to be taken out for an all-day sit, lunches had to be packed, rifles had to be checked and archery equipment had to be taken out of the truck and placed out of the way until it could be put away for the season. All this in only a few hours before we had to turn in and get up the next morning. “If only we had a day or two between seasons,” I lamented to a friend who found himself in the same situation. As crazy as it was for many of us, the new Saturday opening for the Pennsylvania deer season would prove just as problematic as did New York’s, only in a different way.

For the first time in more than 50 years the Pennsylvania firearms season opened on the Saturday after Thanksgiving rather than the Monday after, but the logistics for getting out proved to be no better for me than they did in New York. My son and his family flew from their home in North Carolina for the Thanksgiving holiday and they would be leaving to fly back on Saturday morning. The idea of my going hunting without seeing them off would never fly in my house, so once again the excitement of going hunting on opening day would have to wait another year at least for me.

Deer season is now logged into the books, and because one season closed the night before the other one opened I still have equipment to remove from the woods. To reach my stands on the farm I hunt I have to traverse a road that bisects two hay fields and a corn field. Warm weather and hubcap-deep mud on the road through these fields have kept me from getting to my stands and ladders in order to store them until next season. I’ve been waiting since December for enough cold weather to freeze the mud so that I can drive through it without making things worse or getting stuck.

I find I’m in the same situation in Pennsylvania. I have two stands and climbing sticks still in the trees they were in when the archery season closed in November. In order to get to them I have to cross two creeks and, because of rain and melting snow, both creeks are currently too high for me to safely cross. In one state I have to wait for a freeze and in the other I’m waiting for the water to go down.

A Saturday opening day has its merits as well as its drawbacks, but if more hunters can get to go, then why not? For this hunter, keeping it to a Monday would prove far less frenzied.