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 you can check out everything we are

doing and reviewing over at Blister Review.com. Today we've got a conversation that I think is really interesting for a lot of reasons.

For starters, the topic is one that is relatively new to me, and in the grand scheme, new to

the entire world.

That's because we're talking about pack rafts.

Ultra light boats, you can fit in a backpack, which were basically unheard of just

a decade ago. But they've exploded in popularity in recent years, and our guest today has been

instrumental in their journey from being a niche tool you'd only see in remote regions of

Alaska or Tasmania, to a category of gear that's been

used by all sorts of outdoorsy people to traverse massive expanses of wilderness, take on Class 5

whitewater, or just casually enjoy the rivers and lakes around their homes.

Joining me is Thor Tingey, the founder of Alpaca Raft.

Thor, alongside his mom, Sherry, decided to make their own pack rafts long before the

majority of the world had ever seen or even heard of the concept.

And that's another reason why I think anyone interested in gear and gear companies will find

this conversation

particularly compelling. We see new brands pop up all the time, but it's extremely rare that

someone starts a company that essentially births an entire sport and industry. That was the case

with Thor and Alpaca, and I wanted to learn a whole lot more about it.

So Thor and I discussed the unique challenges and advantages this scenario presented, how and why

Thor and Sherry were able to craft these ultralight rafts themselves, the ways in which the pack

...