In 2016, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.
A year later, I was standing at 19,341 feet on the summit of Kilimanjaro, watching the sun come up over Tanzania — my daughter Bethan to the side of me, with my cousin Andrew on the front row, my uncle Rob and various friends, who'd flown in from England and Australia somewhere in the group behind us.
That wasn't the plan. A diagnosis like that comes with a lot of assumptions attached to it — about what your body can still do, about what your life is supposed to look like from here on out, about what you ask the people you love to watch you go through. Climbing the tallest mountain in Africa wasn't on the approved list. We did it anyway, and we did it as a family.
Two years later, Andrew and I went again — Kosciuszko this time, the highest point in Australia, his home turf. Different continent, same partnership: two guys who'd rather find out what a mountain has to say than sit around wondering.
That's where Frontier Supply Trading Co. comes from. Not a mood board. Not a trend. A tent in the cold, a candle stuck in a tin can, soup going lukewarm because you're too tired to eat fast, a summit sign the next morning that means more than almost anything else we've done — and afterward, days spent recovering on my brother Sam's game farm in South Africa with Colin and the rest of the crew, watching the sun go down over the bush with the people who'd just climbed it with you.
The Pacific Northwest Summits taught us something, you don't have to fly to Africa to find a mountain worth the climb.
Adams and Hood are both in this collection. I've stood on Mt. Adams summit with my son Jack and my daughter Bethan, and separately on Mt. Adams with my friend Dean — two separate climbs, same idea each time: get up early, get cold, get to the top, and let the mountain do the talking. I've hiked in the Mt. Hood area with my uncle Rob, who'd already put in his own miles with me on Kilimanjaro and spent his youth hiking various summits in Europe before he ever saw this range. This isn't a collection built from photos of mountains we liked. It's a record of who we brought with us.
That's the thing about the Cascades that's different from Kilimanjaro or Kosciuszko. Those took planning, time zones, a passport. These are the ones you can see from your kitchen window in Seattle or Portland — Rainier daring the city to forget it's dormant, not extinct, Adams standing quieter over the Gorge, Hood watching over Portland the way it always has. You don't need a plane ticket. You need a weekend and someone willing to get up before sunrise with you.
Every piece in the Pacific Northwest Series carries the same build as the rest of the Frontier Supply line — compass on the front, that peak's badge on the back, coordinates and elevation on the sleeve. What's different is the tone. Less expedition, more "let's go this Saturday." Less bucket list, more standing habit.
Mt Adams with Jack and Bethan. The mountains you can get to before breakfast still count.
Every piece we make carries that same idea forward — compass on the front, because direction matters more than speed. That peak's badge on the back, because the ones you've stood on top of are worth marking. Coordinates and elevation on the sleeve, the kind of detail that means nothing to a stranger and everything to the person wearing it.
Frontier isn't a place you arrive at. It's what you do with the years you weren't sure you'd get to spend outside. We build gear for that — heavyweight, built to last, made by people who actually go.
Kilimanjaro and Kosciuszko started it — Bethan, Andrew, Rob and Sam's farm along the way. The rest of the list is next.