Alpine Luddites

05/06/2025

I just finished teaching a very rewarding three day pack making class at in north Wales,UK. There were 8 students and Rosanna, the owner of Snowdonia Gear Repair. One of my bigger group classes. It was a fantastic group of students and Rosanna was a kind and gracious host for our class. It went so smoothly and felt relaxed to me.

We all built the same pack, the Karrimor Hot Ice. To keep the class low stress We precut each pack in the students requested colors and I built all the shoulder straps ahead of time. Please scroll through the photos to see the incredible job they did building their packs.

There is a link in my bio if you want more information on my classes.

12/31/2024

This pack is for . Chris is a local climbing guide , highly recommended, our Scarpa and Petzl rep and most importantly an old friend. This 40 L Alpine Machine is cut wide and low for use while climbing. It is an inch deeper, front to back, and cut shorter. I added velcro to hold the lid in place above the load lifter straps. It is built in 5 oz Dyneema, with Ultra 400 bottom, lower rim and back panel. All the bartacks in the Dyneema have a full sewn on backing fabric to keep them in place. The drawcord bivy sleeve is 6” tall, half the typical height. It’s not the first time I have done this, and makes sense on a pack for wearing while climbing, less bulk, but still a good seal . I always stuff my lid into the pack while I’m climbing for helmet room and the lid pocket helps keep my headlamp and snacks from disappearing. There is a full length foam back pad, folded is 3/4”, 18 mm, thick against your back. A sewn in 2” seatbelt web waist belt, and in my experience all climbing specific pack needs up-to 50 Liters. It Easley wraps around and threads through the ice tool slots. Both the ice tools are secured by the 6” Nano straps, easy to use, super secure. Always an option on your pack. The top green loop is Chris’s request for external rope strap, but since we used a20” Voile strap it easily unthreads and doesn’t get tangled. The main sack, less the lid is just under 2 lbs. I didn’t weigh it with the lid on, but that too is pretty light being all Dyneema, 5 oz for most of the lid, 1.5 oz inner zip pocket. There is a band of 500 D Cordura sewn into the zipper for securing the velcro stitching.

There is a link in bio if you want to learn more. Like this pack, every pack is custom built for each customer.

12/05/2024

I’m done with house. Talk to you all next week. Full write up coming soon #

10/25/2024

I designed the house. I prefer my life takes place outside whenever possible. One of the features I wanted was to be able to line up the windows so I could see through the house, sort of blur the inside/outside lines in a cold climate. In the second photo, Banjo is not impressed.

10/03/2024

I am no longer receiving mail or ups/fed ex/DHL at my past address. My mail is forwarded but not shipping companies.

09/28/2024

Anna and I did a run of the Arkansas Lunch Bags today. All backorders are shipped. There are a handful we built for inventory available on “ link in bio” or just goto www.alpineluddites.com. They are on the home page. This is one of the most requested items I make when not in stock.

First action shot of the orginal proto by .dalton in Telluride,CO.

This was named in honor of one cyclist i sponsor, and his epic Arkansas Doom ride a fee years ago. It uses one wrap velcro and a daisy chain to attach to the handle bars or any other bag with a daisy chain. The design impetus came from prototypes I used on the 2015 and 2017 TDR races( possible 2025). All are built out of X pac fabrics, even the canvas versions are fully waterproof fabric. They weigh 3-5 ounces depending on fabric. They use up a lot of scrap/mis cut webbing and fabrics. They are $65. Easily hold a days worth of food, TP, gloves and spare film cans.

09/24/2024

A White Light/White Heat off to a customer in Maine. This model is the first modern technical pack I designed for Alpine Luddites and is still on my favorites. I is 20-25L, depending on how much it’s rolled up. It this configuration it, 22 ounces with a sewn in 2” seatbelt web belt. I think the web belt is ideal for a pack this size, seatbelt web is thicker and softer than say 2” mil spec webbing, comes in lots of colors and slips less in a buckle due to it’s thickness. My personal experience, for a climbing pack, is I don’t use a padded belt till my pack is 50 L or bigger. Other option which I do often for customers is two belts, the padded straight cut alpine belt and the seat belt web, both fully removable.

Back to this pack, it works great as a climbing pack as it rolls down to below the helmet line so it can easily be worn while climbing. It is typically set up as shown. The daisy chains have large handles at the top for both setting up a 3 point haul, but also picking the pack up with big gloves on. The 3/4” folded, foam pad is removable and unfolds to 44”x9”. Inside zipper pocket so you don’t loose your keys. Built in Ultra 400 with a doubled bottom, lower rim, crampon patch and ice tool sleeves. The shoulder straps are filled with Evazote foam, best foam in the world for packs. These packs are custom fitted, like all of my packs. Short torsos get a wider/lower version to achieve the same volume. Any questions just ask.

09/22/2024

New Alpine Luddites news letter up on my Substack. Link in bio.

09/18/2024

Siding story: the house is being sided in locally grown, and sawn, hemlock. I would not have thought to use Hemlock until I started reading work from . I love his design work. I wanted to ask him for help when I started designing but Bob was going through cancer treatment and already had a full plate. He has been generous in answering my random questions, as has Seth . I Certainly do not know it all and have technical help ease’s my mind. I owe them both bike bags. I try to pay it forward by responding to questions from other makers.

So, back to the hemlock. This is from p&r sawmill in Woollcott vermont, 20 miles away. It is laid out “ board on board”. The first board is 8” wide, the overlapping board is 6”, covering 1” of each 8” board. More easily said as 4” between the 8” boards. I am using black 3” deck screws on the first layer, in the center, and 4” black ( spray painted grks) on the 6” boards with the screws spanning the gap and going into the rain screen strapping. They do not go into the 8” boards. This allows them to expand and contract with temperature and/or humidity. This is a classic style from Scandinavia. As is the pine tar/oil/turpentine coating. The finishes are from .restoration and made in Sweden. We used 35 gallons to coat the boards. My wife and daughter did the painting.

There is a 2” rain screen gap behind the boards, and 3” behind the 6” boards. The design is the cladding keeps out bulk water, and any that does get in, can easily drain out the bottom. There is plenty of room for airflow behind the siding, the photo from the bottom shows the channels, sorry it’s sideways. The green is our bottom string line. At the soffit there is a gap for escaping air. All of this air flow not only dries out the siding, but allows water v***r to escape from the wall cavities behind the Rockwool insulation. Under the rock wool is the wall Mento 3000 and the wall sheathing. It is a lot of layers, and the finished wall is 14”

09/13/2024

House update: this past week was super busy. I finished sheathing the shop roof and got the metal roof on. Trim is next week, I miss cut one piece of gable metal trim and need to get more. I installed the rest of the shops windows. I was so tired yesterday, i couldn’t figure out why dimensions of the window opening were so off. This morning i realized i was putting the window in sideways….. so the shop was pretty much all dried in this week. The epoxy for the carriage doors just showed up and they will be done next week.

Also got to work on laying out the siding for the house and started to get that up tonight. It’s 22’ tall, offset vertical hemlock from a local sawmill, coated with Swedish black pine tar, tung/boiled linseed oil and turpentine. All four plant materials. I wouldn’t eat the stuff but nothing is gonna need a warning label either. The siding inspiration came from Jacob . I must have watched the movie of the house he built 10 times. He was kind enough to send me both the pine tar and interior plaster recipes that he used. I bought my timber framing tools from him. I really want to take his timber framing course in Norway.

I am in the shop the next three days, squeezing in my weekly 40 hours, if you need to get a hold of me let me know time to have a call via text or DM.I have four custom packs in process and Anna and I will finish up all the HAB panniers and get those shipped.

09/07/2024

09/02/2024

Another custom project done today. This messenger bag is built in waxed canvas from in Scotland, lined with Ultra 200 tx for a life time of heavy use. The inside book sleeve is X11 canvas, so it has some stiffness for sneaking books out of the library. All my early climbing books I borrowed from the public library when I was 10…..anyway, the bottom has exterior layer of black Ultra 400. Rear tail light loop too. Cobra buckle on the strap, so the end of the strap can be used to smash cars or e bikes in the bike lane., inside pocket in topo print Dyneema, exterior pocket in xpl200. Both have #5 YKK water resistant zipps. I am far from the ultra organized EDC bag, Carryology fan boy group, so my bags are minimal on interior pockets. I am more just dump it all in type organization. Your OCD may vary.

Yes, we will be building a run of these one off bags soonish and there are a couple slots left. This bag, as embarrassing as this is to say, is for a customer who bought one of the first bags, but I accidentally shipped it to someone on the batch build. There is a link in my bio if you want one from the coming batch.