Stacks of Packs

We have a room in our office that is full of packs. At the end of every summer we wash, dry, inventory, and inspect everything that Beyond owns. The packs in the room are the ones that were in need of a little extra love and repair. I just started working at Beyond again and I thought it would be cool to move into that room and pretend I had my own office. The moment I opened the door to check it out I was hit by a wave of smell, the smell of pack. Now, some people might use the word stench to describe the odor of compounding BO, dirt, and something somehow sweet, but to me it just smells like memories. These packs have worked hard for the privilege of their smell. They have hauled dozens of pounds of gear up countless mountains on the backs of campers of all shapes and sizes. A Beyond pack gets used eight times more than a pack owned by your average Joe (or Jane) Shmoe. They get drenched in sweat, thrown on the ground, sat on (I mean wait, that doesn’t happen), stuffed until bursting, dragged through the mud, rained on, and then scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. If you’ve been to Beyond, you can imagine the smell. If you’ve ever worked at Beyond, you're probably like me and have come to love the smell. When I leave the door open the whole office wreaks of nostalgia and some of the best times of my life. In fact most of the clothes I wear in the mountains smell the same way when I take them out of the drier.

I was trying to come up with some analogy for these packs and the Beyond experience. I guess like the packs you might get roughed up a bit if you are willing to head out on such an adventure, and what seemed before like the stench of struggle and challenge and dirt will change to the sweet aroma of deep relationship, satisfaction, and beauty, and probably some of the best memories of your life.

Too much? Well it’s true even if it is a little sentimental. So go on a trip or apply to be on staff already. Then you too can smell like the packs, and like it.