The Daily Slacker: Your New Gear Guide Has Arrived

👋  Welcome to The Daily Slacker. It’s your all-access pass to the latest outdoor news, top-priority gear reviews, and sometimes most-oddball slack conversations between GearJunkie’s Editorial Staff, presented to you by Editorial Director Sean McCoy and Editor-in-Chief Adam Ruggiero. Set your status to active, notifications are rolling in!

📌  What’s in our sidebar?

• Game Day: This Super Bowl ad has us talking.

• Shakeup, Baby: YETI acquires an outdoor pack maker.

• 13 Mount Everests:  This guy skied 380K feet uphill in one month.

Those Super Bowl Ads

Were you watching the Super Bowl just for the funny ads and good food? Us to!

Team Thoughts 👇

Meet the Team: Stephen Regenold, GJ's Founding Editor.  M.T. Elliott, Writer

🎒 Serving up what’s fresh in outdoor gear releases.  

YETI + Mystery Ranch = 💥

Major news slammed the outdoor industry, as YETI Holdings, Inc. announced it signed an agreement to acquire the Bozeman, Montana-based tactical, hunting, and outdoor pack maker, Mystery Ranch. The financial terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed. 

• YETI continues to expand offerings with camp chairs and tote bags

• Mystery Ranch keeps going strong with packing cubes and hip packs

The Backstory

Mystery Ranch launched in 2000 and has remained under the same ownership of founders Dana Gleason and Renée Sippel-Baker. YETI, meanwhile, was founded by brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders in 2006. Its rise was meteoric and in the 15 years since it launched, it has now reached a market cap of $3.9 billion.

What’s Next

While the news is big for the industry, it’s not the only acquisition YETI has made this year. In January, the Austin, Texas, giant purchased Butter Pat, which manufactured YETI’s (shocking) $400 cast iron pan in 2023.

🎿 Delivering the latest in adventure news.

Team Thoughts 👇

Meet the Team: Will Brendza is GearJunkie’s Camp/Hike/Backpack Editor

Breaking Major Ski Records

In his quest to ski 3 million vertical feet in a single year, Noah Dines skied more than 378,000 feet in January alone.

• Dines broke the previous record from Greg Hill, who managed 328,614 feet

• That’s the uphill equivalent of 13 Mount Everests

• Dines will need to continue skiing uphill 7K to 9K feet daily to meet his goal  

This means Dines is spending many hours a day slogging up snow slopes on skins, as only vertical feet count for the record — not any of the time spent skiing downhill. “It really is all-encompassing. I ski, I eat and I rest.”

⚡ Testing all gear so you don’t have to.

World’s 1st Custom Multi-Tool If you think Leatherman and Gerber are the only players in the multi-tool game, think again. We get into about the good, the bad, and the ugly about this little-known but very cool multi-tool brand, GOAT Tools.

Most Perfect Headlamp? This week, we wrote about the Black Diamond Spot 400-R headlamp. It's everywhere, and on every publication's best-of list. We've said it once, and we'll repeat it, but that headlamp is just right when you don't need a bunch of power.

MBZ eSprinter Arrives In a first drive, we were impressed by the capabilities, performance, and range of this beast. It’s got a low load floor and a high roof, but it’s expensive with a price tag of $71K. 

"Hunting rifles may have made a comeback, but we can’t deny the optics have changed, and we aren’t talking about scopes. Black is the new black, and skeletonized, carbonized, optimized rifles are taking the lead over the walnut butts of yesteryear.”

—  Rachelle Schrute, GearJunkie Hunt & Fish Editor on SHOT Show 2024

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