Eagle Creek Is Shutting Down

The journey equipment marketplace dropped a large hitter yesterday, as Eagle Creek introduced that it will shut down operations by the end of this 12 months. Its mother or father company, VF Company, the Colorado-primarily based conglomerate that owns other significant outdoor names like the North Confront and Altra, supplied scant specifics about the aspects that led to the brand’s demise, basically expressing that keeping the label running “no extended makes strategic or economical perception.” As a recurrent traveler and operator of a lot of Eagle Creek-stamped baggage, I’m remaining to mourn the 100-liter-sized hole in high-good quality, rugged vacation equipment. 

In the course of its just about 50 years in business, Eagle Creek, which was commenced by Steve and Nona Barker in San Jacinto, California, in 1975, became renowned in the rough-using experience journey neighborhood for the sturdiness and ground breaking layout of its luggage, backpacks, and accessories. In the course of my time as a travel editor and equipment reviewer, I’ve analyzed a lot more than fifty percent a dozen Eagle Creek offerings, including the bombproof Cargo Hauler duffel, the versatile Switchback carry-on, and the intelligent Wayfinder backpack. I was normally amazed by the considerate style and design facts: not like some other journey brand names, whose solutions include bells and whistles that offer you minor useful worth, it’s apparent that the minds powering Eagle Creek’s creations are travelers by themselves and that they considered tough about what would really work best on the road. For instance, the Wayfinder’s hidden tech pocket has a wire move-by involving the shoulder strap and notebook compartment for charging your cell phone on the go from a powerbank. I have edited loads of writers who swear by the brand’s hardiness, which include a person whose baggage has held up for around a 10 years. The brand’s Caldera International Carry-On, an update of the Switchback, even nabbed a person of Outside’s coveted Equipment of the Yr awards. 

Absent from my desk and out on the road, I’d usually locate myself inventing goods in my head that I wished existed (such as a wheeled carry-on with backpack straps and a zip-out personalized item), only to discover that Eagle Creek previously designed it. My most loved illustration of this phenomenon is the Pack-It Isolate packing cube. Extended plagued by my two arch nemeses—overpacking and a deficiency of organization—I dreamt of a dice that did not choose up cherished bag place, could compress items down to 50 percent their dimension, and confirmed what was inside of. Eagle Creek, of study course, produced this far too.

No other product in my many years of screening and globetrotting has modified the way I traveled as a lot as this packing dice. At close to two ounces just about every, the Pack-Its punch very well previously mentioned their body weight when it comes to functionality—I wish I had them when I was dwelling out of a backpack in Asia and Australia for far more than three a long time. The compression zippers allowed me to squeeze a week’s value of clothing into a suitcase commonly meant for a couple times, conserving me additional than a several checked bag charges. Their stand-out characteristic, however, is so evident I just can’t believe it is not standard in all places: they are translucent, so I can know what’s in the cube with no opening it. That, put together with the selection of sizes and kinds that makes it possible for me to organize apparel by working day or use, has saved me plenty of minutes of unpacking and repacking as I shift from place to position. Virtually talking, this meant that though my mom rushed to squeeze every little thing again into her suitcase as we hopped resorts in Italy, I was having fun with my 3rd espresso down in the café. Listening to the information about Eagle Creek’s downfall had me wanting to know how lots of Pack-Its I could acquire in bulk in advance of they disappear permanently.

Extended just before they perfected the packing dice, Eagle Creek began out producing custom backpacks. In 2007, the corporation was obtained by VF Corporation, with the objective of turning humble beginnings into a $100 million brand name. It’s unclear irrespective of whether the COVID-19 pandemic’s decimation of the worldwide travel field experienced a hand in the brand’s unexpected disintegration. Although some employment will be eradicated, VF Corporation says several Eagle Creek staffers will be shifted to sister manufacturers like Jansport and Eastpak. 

I, for just one, will be sad to see Eagle Creek’s brand disappear from cabinets it is 1 of the handful of baggage businesses that nearly confirmed a just one-time order. The brand’s “No Make a difference What” warranty—which involved alternative or mend of many goods, no matter of the cause of failure—was one particular of the few left in the business soon after L.L. Bean and REI declared that they were ending similar return programs in modern several years. It is not apparent if or how VF Company will honor that guarantee now (the organization did not respond to a ask for for comment). Irrespective, I hope that Eagle Creek’s team will carry on the spirit of the brand’s easy-but-major improvements and purchase-it-for-daily life high quality at other labels in the business.