Community Stories
On behalf of Patagoniacs everywhere, we dedicate The Cleanest Line to YC and Malinda. Thanks for everything. Patagonia holiday party 2005. Photo: Dave Kanarek
"The time is five o’clock, and I aaaaaaam outta here!" Everyday, all the little worker bees at Patagonia HQ eagerly await those sweet words from our frisbee-freak receptionist Chipper Bro, but never more so than on Friday afternoon. Some folks bust out their aloha shirts to celebrate Friday, while others simply don’t show up to…
As a young skater growing up on the east coast in the 80s, Christian Hosoi had already achieved iconic status amongst my circle of friends. Some of our earliest glimpses of professional skateboarding, which at the time existed almost entirely on the west coast (SoCal specifically), were delivered courtesy of Thrasher Magazine and featured coverage of the scene and contests going on at Del Mar Skate Park. Christian Hosoi’s style practically jumped out of the pages.
We got this field report from Laura Cooper, a Virginian living in Oregon. I really liked her story, writing and dedication to the outdoors – she’s an ESL teacher who spends most of her time backpacking, skiing and reading, as well as birding, paddling, and taking pictures.Thanks for the great report Laura! After forty-five minutes…
Today we have a special treat for you. Patagonia field report contributor Fitz Cahall just alerted us to his new podcast The Dirtbag Diaries. If you’re at all a fan of our field reports please take a moment and listen to Fitz speak his writing to life. You can either listen now via the embedded…
You’re all pretty familiar with the Dawn Patrol (DP) idea by this point: wake with the roosters, drive blear-eyed through the pre-dawn black, exit warm car in the belly of the night’s bitter cold, strap on headlamps and start slogging uphill through dark and snow, all for a token taste of skiing before work. I…
Fifteen year-olds scare me to death. I’ve never been cool, and 15 was when my nerdiness fleshedout in all its glorious fullness. And now, the great karmic card dealer has dealt me this hand: I’ll be living with a whole posse of them in the Tetons for the next three weeks. I’m used to guiding…
The latest episode of The Dirtbag Diaries went live on Thursday for your podcasting pleasure. From the site: Many of us associate our vehicles with freedom,independence and youth. Even as we come to terms with the fact thatautomobiles may be an unnecessary evil, it’s hard not to think back tothat first surf or climbing trip…
So much of what we do stems from the desire to improve the world for the next generation. And here at Pat. HQ we’re constantly reminded of that responsibility by the kids we see playing at our onsite daycare center. Patagonia customer Chris Stelter makes us optimistic for the future with this heart-warming contribution. Chris…
Another great contribution from a former employee of one of our many Independent Patagonia Dealers. The Cleanest Line Crew, Patagonia is about getting to the source. The source of where materials come from. The outdoors, the source of the passion and commitment by the enthusiasts that Patagonia’s products are designed by and for. I worked…
Need a soundtrack for your Earth Day celebrations? Thought so. Grassroots radio maestro extraordinaire Don Darue has been "servin’ ’em up covered and smothered" for purt-near 20 years on the homegrown radio show The Risky Biscuit Hayseed Hoot. One of Dondo’s specialties is the Annual Edward Abbey Memorial Tribute Edition of the show. Wanna get…
The days are gone when I would cruise solo to work, blasting the music, surfboard on the roof, checking all the breaks along the way. Now with two small children in tow, I carpool down the 101 with another mom to the Patagonia headquarters in Ventura. We travel together as families, bringing our kids to…
Ray King, the manager of our Santa Cruz outlet store, sent us his take on the 2007 Surf Kayak Festival held at Steamer Lane, where Patagonia’s director of direct marketing, Morlee Griswold, took first place in the women’s international division. Generally speaking, if it’s foggy in the morning the sun will burn through by the…
If you live in the Reno area or happen to be there on May 17, please join Rick Ridgeway for this special event at the Patagonia Service Center. Those not in the area can read about Rick’s journey in his book The Big Open: On Foot Across Tibet’s Chang Tang. THE BIG OPEN On Foot…
We just got word from Fitz Cahall that the newest episode of The Dirtbag Diaries is now live. In this special episode Fitz adds photographs to his podcast to help tell the story of adventure photographer Corey Rich and his unique profession. Watch and listen on your computer or download it to your photo-ready iPod…
You’ve heard of the dude. But unless you’ve visited Patagonia HQ, taken a Surfclass in Ventura or happen to be a freestyle Frisbee player, chances are you haven’t heard of the bro. I’m talking about Chipper "Bro" Bell, the voice of Patagonia and 11-time World Freestyle Frisbee Champion. Check out Chipper Bro in action 0:42…
Have a look/listen at a segment from today’s Morning Edition on how businesses are trying to reduce their impact on global warming: California Company Works to Cut, Adapt to Warming And for what it’s worth, I’ve never been fortunate enough to see a mouse scurry across the floor during a line presentation (listen to the…
If you live or happen to be in the Boulder, CO area this weekend, be sure and stop by the Boulder Adventure Film Festival and Dirt Days. The festival, which starts tomorrow (May 11), is wonderfully organized by climber/writer/photographer, and Patagonia catalog contributor, Jonathan Copp. The films look great and the Dirt Days events will…
Congratulations are in order for Patagonia paddling ambassador Eric Jackson and his family. Mark, our product line director for paddling, sends word: I’d like to share the great news that our paddling ambassadors Eric, Emily, and Dane Jackson took home top spots in this year’s World Freestyle Kayaking Championships: Eric Jackson – Men’s 1st placeEmily…
For most of us at Patagonia, biking to work is choice versus driving our cars. But for the world’s poorest communities, a bicycle is one of few affordable transportation options. Grayson Schaffer, Associate Editor for Outside magazine, has written a post for the blog Those Responsible about hardcore kayaker Ed Lucero and the bike he…
We just wrapped up Bike-to-Work Week here in Ventura with a groovy happy hour and raffle. A quick tally shows that Ventura employees rode 1,979 miles this week and Reno rode a whopping 2,789 miles! (Stay tuned for the Retail store totals.) According to Bike Metro and the EPA, by riding our bikes instead of…
Fitz Cahall helps us shake off the Monday blues with a wonderful tale of travel improvisation as told in the newest episode of The Dirtbag Diaires. There is a fine line between a life-lasting memory and disaster. Whatever the discipline – alpinism, big wave surfing, foreign travel – we calculate risk, formulate plans and sometimes…
You don’t hear those terms used together very often, if ever. But when former Patagonia sales rep turned filmmaker, Hansi Johnson, got the call to produce a video for the band Low, he drew on two of his passions to make a very strong point about the state of the environment. Hansi decided to focus…
by Jeff Johnson Editor's note: We're stoked to introduce a new feature on The Cleanest Line from Bend to Baja author/photographer Jeff Johnson. Jeff's work has appeared in The Surfer’s Journal, Surfer’s Path, Alpinist, Surfing, Surfer and the Patagonia catalog. When we don't have him chained to a desk at Pat. HQ in Ventura, Jeff…
Gather ’round the campfire one and all; embrace a loved one or grab a cold one; smoke ’em if you got ’em and leave your troubles behind. It’s time for another episode of The Dirtbag Diaries with Fitz Cahall: In May of 2007, I made a mistake that should have cost me my life when…
Happy Father’s Day to all the Patagoniac dads out there. Hope you had a good one. I’m sure some of you can relate to this sweet story from Ray Aberle. Read "Smaller Summits" How did fatherhood change your outdoor lifestyle? We’d love to read your story in the comments section if you have the time…
Ventura, California Departure: June 8, 2007 Let me introduce myself. My name is Jeff though sometimes people call me Tofu. Yes, I am employed by Patagonia. I work as a photographer, writer, and assist in the testing and production of Patagonia products. I am hitting the road in my van for an undetermined amount of time, simply to…
Sometimes you just gotta clear your head of work. For John and Jake that means throwing up an impromptu slackline and getting zen for a few minutes. Here we see Ben from our Facilities department walking the line for the first time behind Patagonia HQ. Smiles all around. [Photo: Free] [L to R: John tests…
Fitz Cahall brings us another wonderful tale for the virtual campfire today. In a sea of podcasts the Dirtbag Diaries is a rare species, one of the few honest and inspiring options for outdoor enthusiasts. Please help spread the word by turning on your friends and family to this unique podcast. And now, Episode 7,…
Working at Patagonia is not like working at most other companies.There are many reasons, but one is the lack of rigid hierarchical structure. The office doors of upper management are always open (when there are doors), questions are encouraged and the company’s managers rarely issue edicts or micromanage employees. This decentralized system of doing things…
The other day while wandering around Camp 4 in Yosemite I ran into Patagonia ambassador Timmy O’Neill. He was hanging around the SARS site with his brother Sean and some guy named Aron. Timmy asked me if I wanted to climb the Manure Pile with him and Aron. “Sure,” I said. Walking to the parking…
Getting started on Monday morning is always rough. Sometimes it's best to just put on the headphones, drown out the rest of the world, and get lost in a good podcast. From Dirtbag Diaries creator, Fitz Cahall: I want you to think back to the first time you touched granite, rolled a kayak or linked…
Podcast number two of The First Time series on The Dirtbag Diaries features Patagonia ambassador Tanya Shuman. From Fitz: Every sport has hallowed ground, a place were legends honed techniquesand innovators forged new technology. Climbers have Yosemite Valley.For mountain bikers, it’s Vancouver’s North Shore. If you’re afreestyle kayaker, there’s one wave, far from any damn-controlledriver,…
This submission came to us from Topher Browne, a Patagonia Ambassador and recovering dirtbag. I have not really been a dirtbag for several years now. I recently traded in the last in a long line of Toyota trucks for an efficient but less than capacious Honda Civic. If I tried to spend the night in…
Ice Climbing at night on Valentine's Day after a full bottle of wine: Get ready for some good times courtesy of The Dirtbag Diaries: Valentine’s Day – For some, it brings to mind romantic candle-lit evenings. For others, mere mention of the holiday conjures up cringe-inducing images of overpriced flowers and public displays of affection.…
Many of you are familiar with Steve House's incredible accomplishments. But have you ever wondered about his very first climb? In part 4 of the The First Time series on The Dirtbag Diaries we get to hear about it: If you’ve opened an outdoor magazine in the last three years, you’ve probably read about Steve…
It’s been a fun week of First Time stories thanks to The Dirtbag Diaries. We’ve heard from an extreme sledder, a freestyle kayaker, an ice climber, an alpinist and now, a snowboarder: Snowboarding can’t change a life. Carving four beautiful turns down an impossibly steep face aren’t going to alter a person’s course through this…
by Jeff Johnson Sometimes you forget about your own backyard. While passing through Ventura the other day I had heard about a building south swell. So I hooked up with Patagonia Surf ambassadors Mary Osborne and Chris Malloy and headed south. We ended up posting up all afternoon at a spot north of Malibu. The…
It is with great sadness that we learned recently of the death of a true friend of the climbing community. Pete Absolon of the National Outdoor Leadership School passed away this weekend in a climbing accident in the Wind River Range of Wyoming. It's hard to find the right words at time like this. We…
It’s not often that a person feels a small thrill at the sight of a pile of poo. But when ol’ Smokeythrice leaves his calling card in the form of ursine spoor deposited within a short radius of the office, it’s time to take notice. Rumors of bears coming down from the high country due…
You might have heard stories about the residents of mountain towns doing funny things from time to time. That was us today, here at Patagonia’s Northern Nevada digs. Staring slack-jawed out the windows, running around yelling at each other, spinning in wild circles outside . . . Why? Well, it rained, that’s why. What’s the…
We talk about being committed to the core. Steve House and Lynn Hill are two Patagonia athletes whose stories (both posted recently here on The Cleanest Line) offer a professional insight into this philosophy. Theirs are tales of the unreal made real through the power of intense professional focus. But "committed to the core" does…
After a well-deserved vacation, Fitz Cahall and The Dirtbag Diaries are back on the air. Episode 9 is presented to you here as both an mp3 podcast and a photo-enhanced video, embedded after the jump. From Fitz: How do people remember the dead? Some people stuff wrinkled snapshots into wallets. Others build ornate mausoleums. Others…
If you’ve visited the homepage of Patagonia.com recently, or flipped through our Fall 2007 catalog, you’ve no doubt seen this incredible image of polar bears lined up on the ice. We’ve already received a few customer comments asking why we would publish a shot that is digitally enhanced. The answer: we didn’t. The masters will…
We received a note the other day in our e-mail box. Our kind correspondent had a simple request: more Field Reports, more stories of dirtbags doing their thing. So here's a little story from the archives. This one's for you, Kelly: Perhaps it was the ten-hour trip off-roading over the rutted steppe in a Russian…
Besides working on today’s episode, Dirtbag Diaries host Fitz Cahall just launched a redesigned version of his Web site, www.dirtbagdiaries.com. Stop by when you have a chance and don’t forget to tell your friends about this one-of-a-kind podcast. Now, without further adieu, Fitz Cahall: There’s no such thing as a perfect job. There’s always a…
This summer my sister got hitched! We grew up in the wilds of Northern British Columbia and you couldn’t find a more spectacular backdrop for your big day. So friends and family made the trek to Smithers, BC for a weekend of festivities to celebrate my sister and my brother in law. Sure it was…
Epic. That’s all I need to say about this episode of The Dirtbag Diaries. Fitz Cahall will tell you the rest: Forests, rivers, oceans and mountains – to some of us they’re like old friends, but how far would you go to save them? In this era when our wild places exist in a precarious…
Tom Brokaw recently interviewed Patagonia owner Yvon Chouinard at Google’s Zeitgeist 2007 conference. The theme: Leading a Non-Virtual LifeTom Brokaw and Yvon Chouinard talk about being intentionally"un-networked" and leading a deliberately disconnected life. Both discuss why living off the grid is critical for a well-roundedexistence.
Recent Patagonia employee Matt Hunt remembers a friend we lost on this weekend four years ago: “Peace and Go Wild” That is how Linnea always used to sign off her letters. Linnea Erickson started at the Reno Service Center in October of 2003, helping out with the holiday rush. Her first weekend in the area, she set…
We recently received a request to post a list of Y.C.’s favorite books on The Cleanest Line. We’ll do our best to make that happen, but in the meantime there is one book Patagonia has been recommending since the launch of our Common Threads Garment Recycling program. The book is Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a…
What is "fitness," exactly? Trainers, elite athletes, and the polished exercise-club crowd have one idea. It involves things like resting heart rate, VO2 Max, reps-per-minute, lactate thresholds . . . lots of numbers. The “fitness” they’re talking about can be measured, quantified, and presumably, understood once the right numbers have been crunched. But wait a…
I reckon there’s no better way to start off a holiday week than with a fresh episode of The Dirtbag Diaries podcast with Fitz Cahall. From Fitz: Every aspiring photographer dreams of capturing an iconic image. It’s the same kind of motivation that draws young skiers to intimidating lines in foreboding ranges and pulls ambitious…
The Pleasant Revolution pedaled through Patagonia Ventura’s campus on Tuesday and shared their music and good cheer with the employees during lunch. Comprised of Xtracycle co-founder Kipchoge Spencer, his band the Ginger Ninjas, fellow bike musicians SHAKE YOUR PEACE! and an eight-person support crew, the Pleasant Revolution are riding their Xtracycles over 5,000 miles from…
Welcome to part II of this post. If you haven’t already done so, you might check out the first Dirtbag Fitness post for a bit of context. Those of you who read Part I will know part II is about a week late. All I can say is, well, it’s a post about dirtbags. What…
W’s Tosh Crew Neck Sweater. W’s Wailer Skirt. W’s Trench Town Hoody Jacket/Pants. Do the names of those products prompt anything to come to mind for you? As a long time fan of reggae music and particularly, the collective and individual members of The Wailers, I was surprised and, initially, disturbed that Patagonia would reference…
Amidst the hell of war, Fitz Cahall has discovered a story that will warm your heart: There was nothing exceptional about how Ryan Utz and Micah Helser became friends. After nodding at each other in the office hallways for weeks, they happened to discover that they shared an interest in sustainable building. They got to…
We are deeply saddened to report that our good friend and longtime Patagonia colleague Kenny Harbaugh passed away last week while backcountry touring in British Columbia. Ken was on an inspiration trip with some of our ski ambassadors and members of the snow sports design/development team. It’s impossible to capture all Kenny meant to us.…
Happy holidays to you and yours from Patagonia Ventura (pictured), Reno, Japan, Europe and all of our Retail Stores. Thank you to all of our customers, partners, friends and families for your honest feedback, passionate activism and continued support. We’ll see you 2008. [The tribe in Ventura gathered in front of the original Chouinard Equipment…
Update: A memorial paddle-out will take place on February 3 at 8am in front of Zuma Beach Lifeguard Tower 9. All are welcome. Please continue reading for details. It is with a heavy heart that we inform you of another passing in the Patagonia family. Brian Fritz, a long-time Patagonia employee and manager of our…
With the New Year comes a new episode of The Dirtbag Diaries and Fitz Cahall is throwing down the gauntlet. How big will you go this year? Sir Edmund Hillary often insisted that while his feats and goals were of historic proportions, he was just a simple man, more comfortable in cover-alls than the high-attire…
Coming back to work after a long weekend can be tough. Thankfully, Fitz Cahall is here to rescue us with a new episode of The Dirtbag Diaries: In the summer of 2007, kayaker and blogger Shane Robinson found himself paddling down Peru’s isolated Apurimac River, one of the Amazon’s five major tributaries. Ahead of him…
Fitz Cahall hands over the reins of The Dirtbag Diaries this week to his wife Becca: The Weather Channel’s Local on the 8’s. NOAA. Surf cams. We’ve all been there – staring at the places we would like to be through a computer or television screen. We shut our eyes at our desks and try…
This just in from The Cleanest Line email bag: the back of our work truck!keeping us warm out in the elements! many thanks, we fly the patagonia flag with pride:) smiles for miles from the u.k. richard esq www.friend-of-mine.co.uk & shoot-the-moonshine.blogspot.com/ Always good to hear from Patagoniacs across the pond. If you have a few…
Boys’n Berries, the time is here once again. It’s March 14th. Some might recognize this as the birthday of Albert Einstein. But there’s another figure who looms large on America’s ideological horizon; one whose personal genius, like Einstein’s, exploded in the deserts of the American Southwest. Edward Abbey wandered out into the deserts of southern…
And while we’re on the subject, this Awareness Test video has been forwarded to me numerous times in the last few weeks. I’m glad to know it’s making the rounds. Update: TwoSevensClash just alerted me to a site he recently added to our Del.icio.us links (they’re just to your left under Recent Comments, check for…
Something interesting has happened around here. Our crew of reluctantly employed fun junkies has remained largely unchanged since Patagonia first set up shop here in Reno in 1996. Sure, the workplace has changed a little bit (no more camping in the parking lot, to mention one thing), but the people have been more or less…
Today we present a special weekend edition of The Dirtbag Diaries with Fitz Cahall. You might recognize the Tom Broxson from a previous episode. In spring of 1991, Tom Broxson survived a 200-foot fall – a full rope length – off the top of Yosemite Valley’s Washington Column. To this day, Tom, his climbing partner…
Fitz Cahall surprised us this morning with a new feature on The Dirtbag Diaries called "The Shorts." In between full-length episodes of the podcast, the Dirtbag Diaries will now be featuring short stories from listeners like you. If you have a short story to share, email The Dirtbag Diaries. In the meantime, here’s Fitz: Great…
At the tail end of winter, a trio of friends — Chipper Bro, DK and Free — spent a pleasant morning playing disc golf at Lake Casitas, near Ojai, California. The dirtbag equivalent to ball golf, disc golf (also called Frisbee® golf) is typically free of charge and played in less manicured environments like parks,…
