Mountainabout -  775 Ellison Goolsby Lane - Bloomington Springs, TN 38545 - (615) 692 9800 - info@mountainabout.com

Proudly Made In Tennessee
Life's a gift, so get out there.
I know what you're thinking, and yes, I am a dork. Self portrait on the AT at Davenport Gap at the GSMNP border TN/NC.
Standing on Charlie's Bunion GSMNP TN
About MountainAbout and Owner Ben Vestal

Hey everyone. My name is Ben and I am the owner of MountainAbout. Actually, sometimes I think it owns me. I have always loved the outdoors and being in the mountains. Even at an early age you could find me sneaking off into the woods at the edge of our neighborhood to walk around and spend all day exploring. My love of the mountains grew as I did and I spent more and more time exploring the wilds. I love to hike, travel, paddle and just be outdoors. I have hiked extensively in the Southeast, spending the majority of that time in the Smokies, on the AT and hiking the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee. I even try to squeeze in a trip to the Western mountains every now and again.

I started becoming very serious about hiking around 2002 and quickly realized carrying a heavy pack sucked hardcore. Back then there where very few companies that made anything an ultralighter would want to have. Often times you would have to make your own. Not long after that I stumbled across a resource talking about a great little pack called the G4 and that you could make yourself at a web site called GVP Gear (now Gossamer Gear.) I quickly checked it out and ordered the pattern and materials. That started me sewing my own gear. I also realized that rarely did a company make gear that worked perfectly for me. I always had to make my own despite a gazillion companies that make all sorts off different stuff. So I figured if I was dissatisfied then surely there must be others.

One of the most frustrating things for me while hiking was always having the POS cord on the bottom of hiking gaiters break. The only way to avoid that was wearing heavy duty mountaineering gaiters that came with a durable strap or wear no gaiter at all. So after playing around with a few ideas I came up with a strap that really held up to abuse. After hearing the rants of my hiking buddies having the same problem I decided to start a simple lil website selling my durable straps. So in 2007 I launched the MountainAbout website and made the straps dubbed GatrGards in my garage part time at my suburban home in Murfreesboro, TN.

I had always wanted to grow MountainAbout and also have more products, but a full time job as a produce manager left very little time for that. While sometimes working 70+ hours a week and coupled with a sudden surge in sales of the GatrGards, I ended up having a totally unacceptable waiting period of 3 months or so to get the GatrGards. So in 2011 I decided it was time for a radical change. I decided to get rid of my suburban home and move.

By luck I found what I have always wanted; a small, rickety old cabin (that was in need of a lot of love) out in the hills of Tennessee. Even better was that it had a newer 1000 sq ft work shop on the property that would be perfect for the sewing shop and, (cough) uhhem, new World Headquarters of MountainAbout. I moved in as soon as I could and got to work on some new products.

I am looking forward to growing MountainAbout and coming out with new products. I hope you'll enjoy them too. Let me know what ya think and I look forward to hearing from ya. Happy Trails.

               
                
                  Ben Vestal




Standing in front of the MountainAbout workshop with one of my dogs, Tad.