Outdoor Gear Made in the USA: a Cascade Designs Factory Tour
report from the factory where MSR, Platypus, SealLine, and Therm-a-Rest outdoor gear is made
All MSR stoves get flame tested to make sure they are working properly. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
With so much recent attention on products made in the USA, I was excited to get an invitation to tour the Cascade Designs Factory in Reno, Nevada, to see how gear is made and meet the people who make it.
Cascade Designs is the parent company that owns many outdoor brands, including SealLine, Platypus, Therm-a-Rest, MSR, and PackTowl. These brands are housed in two giant factory buildings where they come to life very differently than I expected.
The Reno factories produce 1.25 million individual pieces of gear each year, with an emphasis on shortening the distance that gear and raw materials travel before getting to you. Cascade Designs also has a repair shop in Reno where they strive to fix gear to keep it out of landfills and get it back out on the trails where it can be used.
I spent nearly six hours at the Cascade Designs factory and repair shop in Reno, meeting the designers, seeing how gear is tested, and even making my own sleeping pad. Here is what I learned about gear made in the USA.
The Gear, and the People Who Make Them
Every sleeping pad has to be hand trimmed, here Julie Piccolo demonstrates how pads are trimmed by hand. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
I went into this tour expecting a faceless factory filled with robots and machines. I couldn't have been more wrong. Everyone I met at the Cascade Designs factory was friendly, enthusiastic, and passionate about the gear they were making and designing. They genuinely seemed to care about people using their gear and the places where it is being used. There was a lot of humanness to everything. Stickers decorating most of the machines brought warmth and character to the factory.
My first sleeping pad was a self-inflating Therm-a-Rest that I bought over 20 years ago, so I was excited to see how they were made. I have used Platypus QuickDraw filters on my recent Tahoe Rim Trail thru-hikes and it is my go-to water filter for backpacking. I’ve used SealLine bags to organize gear in packs since 2017. And I have carried a version of a PackTowl on most of my backpacking trips, sometimes even two.
Needless to say, I am familiar with the various brands and gear made in the factory, and I felt like I had won the golden ticket in a Willy Wonka chocolate bar when I got to peek behind the curtain.
A tour of the SealLine factory
SealLine bags getting hand trimmed on the factory floor. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
I was initially greeted by Karen Lamerick and Jeff Morberg, who were my hosts for the day, and they introduced me to Destiny Phan, a product engineer whose enthusiasm for the gear she creates radiates across the factory floor.
I started my tour with SealLine, and I was shocked to see how much human interaction there was to create a single dry bag. I just assumed that someone pressed a button and the dry bags were magically made. I was very wrong.
There are people involved in most steps, and they hand trim and inspect each bag at various stages of its creation. All the fabric for these bags is sourced within the U.S. and they try to shorten the impact on the environment by sourcing it as close to the factory as possible.
Because these bags are so labor intensive, it takes the same amount of time to make a large one as it does a much smaller one, something I hadn’t considered before.
Destiny explained how much time goes into the design process to maximize the fabric and minimize waste, much like I would do at home for a sewing project. It was interesting to see that even on a big scale they have to consider the best way to make something based on the width of the bolt of fabric.
Platypus Factory Tour
Destiny holding her favorite Platypus Big Zip Evo that she designed. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
Next Destiny led us to the Platypus section of the factory where her favorite Platypus Big Zip Evo was being made. I got to see again that humans were involved with the process and attaching the zippers by hand, carefully lining everything up just perfectly each time. There were rolls of zippers and tubing and buckets of mouthpieces all ready to be assembled into a new piece of gear.
Destiny spoke passionately about her process for testing and designing new prototypes. Having the factory close to her office in Reno allows her to come up with new creative ideas and test them right away on the factory floor to see how they work. It is a creative person's dream.
Therm-a-Rest
Stacks of newly made Therm-a-rest sleeping pads on a 48-hour inflation test. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
After a short drive to the second facility, I was introduced to Josh Simmons and Terry Owens, who led the Therm-a-Rest area of the factory tour. There were rolling carts stacked 8-feet high with brightly colored air mattresses.
They explained that they inflate the mattresses and leave them inflated for a minimum of 48 hours to make sure the mattresses will hold air on the trail. They don’t want a camper or backpacker to have to worry about holes before they even get started.
Once the mattresses pass the air hold test, they are deflated and tested again to make sure they stay deflated and that there are no valve or other issues before they are rolled and packed into boxes for stores.
Backpacking sleeping pads like the Neo Air and camping air mattresses like the MondoKing were all carefully hand trimmed after coming out of a top secret machine that makes the general mattress shapes. I was surprised to see people involved in this stage—they expertly trimmed each mattress by hand with a speed that most sewists would envy. I had the opportunity to try this myself, and I was so worried I would puncture the mattress—they are very good at their jobs.
Sleeping pad foam inserts getting cut to size on the Therm-a-rest factory tour. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
In the back corner of the factory was giant blocks of memory foam that was also transported from a factory close by. The memory foam is sent compressed to save space on freight charges and has to sit out for several days before it reaches its usable state. There was foam in all different stages of coming to life and it looked like a ton of absolutely giant marshmallows.
From there we watched the self-inflating mattresses come to life, and again there was a lot of human help. I was able to help make a mattress for myself and there were so many steps. Everything has to be done just right to make it all come together and there isn’t a button that you can press and have a machine to do it all for you. These steps made me really appreciate my gear a lot more—I didn’t realize that every valve was attached by hand and tested before making it to the store.
The self-inflating mats are made with memory foam and have to be cut into the mummy shape which means there is excess foam that gets discarded. This excess foam gets chopped up into like a woodchipper.
Several years ago there was an employee in the factory who took this excess foam and decided that it worked great for pillows. They were making them on the side with the discarded foam for other workers. Eventually someone took notice,bought the design from the employee, and now Therm-a-Rest makes compressible backpacking pillows made out of recycled factory foam. I love that someone who worked on the floor got recognized for their creative design and now it is a well loved product with lots of cute colorways.
Another area that was fun to see was the Z Lite pad foam, ready to be pressed into its shape. The Z Lite mats also have excess foam around the edges that needs to be removed. This excess foam gets recycled and turned into underlayments for astro turf fields. Last year alone, the factory was able to send 39,000 pounds of excess Z Lite foam for recycling to be turned into fields.
MSR Factory Tour
MSR Stoves getting assembled. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
Stoves
We took a tour of the MSR stove section of the factory, and John Park, Product Line Manager for MSR, showed me how the stoves like the MSR Pocket Rocket Deluxe are made and assembled by hand before being tested and sent to packaging.
One thing that stood out to me was that MSR, which stands for Mountain Safety Research, really prioritizes safety in their products. The stoves are all tested before they are sent out to stores, and the carbon monoxide output is measured to be within a range to ensure safety of the user. This was a great reminder that backpacking stoves should always be used outside in a well-ventilated area and never inside your tent.
Some of the MSR stoves are made with 150 individual pieces, making up 75 parts that have to be assembled to create a working stove. There were so many people working with small tools assembling these stoves that many of us take for granted. Everything used to make the stoves is sourced within the U.S., shortening the supply chain circle.
MSR Gas canisters. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
The most fun part of the stove assembly is the testing. There is a section with giant vents and gas ports where stoves can be lined up and lit to make sure they work properly. It was very dramatic to see the flames light up on the brand new stoves. If you buy an MSR stove and see a little char on top, just know it is because they tested it before packing it up for you.
Water filters
MSR also makes many different water filters. My first experience with filters was the MSR Sweetwater filter (now discontinued) a long time ago.
Many elements of the filters are hand made and there are multiple stages where they are tested to make sure they are working properly. Safety came up again, and I was told that MSR not only designs their filters to work for the amount of liters listed, but assumes the water is the grossest cow pond, desert water you can find. Many other Treeline Review writers can attest to the amount of gross dirty water we all encounter on trail, and knowing that someone is thinking about real-world use cases made me feel more confident about my filters in the backcountry.
I was so impressed with the testing that goes into each filter before it is sent to the end user. Lab Scientist Patrick McCarthy showed me how they test the filters as they are being assembled to ensure that everything is working properly to filter the water. Filters are inserted into a machine that forces clean water through the filter and determines if it is working properly.
Cascade’s Repair Shop
The dunk tank in the repair shop submerges inflated pads so it is easier to find leaks. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
One of my favorite parts of the tour was getting to see the Repair Shop. Cascade Designs repairs thousands of pieces of gear a year, 65% of the gear that is sent in for repair is fixed and sent back to the owner. I personally have sent my gear in to be repaired on more than one occasion, so it was especially fun to see how the process works.
I met with Chuck Collin, Repair Tech who had to be an expert on everything that Cascade Designs makes in order to be able to repair it.
There were many areas where gear could be repaired, from tent parts and patches to small welding tools for stoves, and my favorite part: a dunk tank for a full-sized sleeping pad, allowing it to be fully submerged while looking for leaks and holes.
If you have ever tried to find a hole in a sleeping pad by trying to submerge it in a bathtub or sink, you will appreciate this dunk tank. There were bars that went across the full length of a pad and a hydraulic press that applied pressure to sink the pad. It is so simple and so cool. I got to watch a few pads get the dunk treatment as we all searched for any bubbles to appear. Once the holes are located, it is easy to patch them and test again. These pads get the same treatment as new pads before they are sent back to their owners – they are inflated for 48 hours and then deflated before being packed up to go back out on the trails.
Designing New Gear
After my tour of fire, water, earth, and air, we went back upstairs to preview some new gear. There are some very thoughtful designs coming out in the future, and many of them will be made in the Reno, Nevada, factories. The designers were passionate about all the details that go into gear and how it is used, made, and created, and it was fun to discuss gear creation with the ultimate gear nerds.
I have always considered myself a gear nerd, but these designers are thinking about the smallest details over 40 hours a week and then testing their ideas and prototypes on weekend trips, expanding that to even more hours spent on their gear. The passion for their designs and ideas shows, and it has to be really exciting to come up with an idea and bring it to life in the factory downstairs all in the same building.
Why It’s Important to Buy Gear Made in the USA
The next time you are in Reno, know that some amazing gear is being made there by passionate people who really care about you, the end user. I had a great time meeting everyone on the tour and getting to see how it’s made in real life. I had no idea that at the base of the Sierra Nevada next to Lake Tahoe was the factory that made the gear I used out on trail. I have a new appreciation for my gear and for the people who make it.
You can see other recommendations across all sorts of types of outdoor gear in our Gear Made in the USA guide.
Why you should trust us
We got the opportunity to trim a sleeping pad for ourselves. Photo courtesy Sara Kruglinski.
I toured the Cascade Designs factory in Reno, NV last month and spent nearly six hours at the factory!
I am a hiker, runner, snowboarder, artist and overall gear nerd. I have been a backpacker for over 20 years and with my dogs for the last 10 years.
I worked as a professional ski patroller, a lifeguard, and on volunteer Search and Rescue (SAR) with my dog in the Tahoe area. I always put safety first. I am constantly editing my gear list to find the best gear for my next adventure.
You can usually find me outside, whether I am backpacking, hiking, running, skiing, or painting.
You can read more about me on my author page.
