Howdy, everybody?

Welcome back to another episode of Gear 30 on the Blister Podcast Network.

My name is Luke Kappa. I am the managing editor at Blister,

and I'm coming to you from our home base in Elevation Hotel in Mount Crested Butte, Colorado.

As always, you can check out everything we are doing and reviewing over

at blisterreview.com. Today's conversation is basically a two-in-one because we're getting two

perspectives on one of the most iconic, influential, and long-standing collections in the outdoor

apparel world, the North Faces Summit series.

This flagship collection has now been around for 25 years, and over that time, it's helped usher in

a lot of the high-end materials, features, and trends that are now commonplace across the

technical apparel market. It was also one of the first programs built around integrating professional athlete feedback

into the development of future products, something that's almost a standard now at many outdoor

apparel brands.

So first, I sat down with one of the North Bases athletes who's been involved for the entirety

of the Summit series,

the one and only Sage Catabriga Alosa.

Sage runs us through how the athlete involvement has evolved over the past two and a half decades

and how his own personal gear preference has changed over that same time period.

Now, as a refresher, Sage started working with the North Base back when he was mostly focused on hitting backcountry booters in the baggiest clothes he could find.

So he's gone through quite the evolution.

We also discussed the particular pieces that have stood out to Sage the most over the years and a whole lot more.

Then I chat with Corey Olson,

...