Alpine Gremlins: Goodbye Trash Bags, Hello Dyneema Pack Liners

Dylan Hooper Goetinck and Skye Cudney met each other in kindergarten. Twenty years later, they launched Alpine Gremlins, a brand specializing in ultralight soft goods like Dyneema Pack Liners.

“We’ve been cooking up stuff and bouncing ideas off each other for so long it’s only natural to put our heads together for a business,” Skye said.

Hailing from Norwich, Vermont, Dylan and Skye were introduced to the outdoors at an early age. Just steps away from the Appalachian Trail and home to several acclaimed Olympians, their hometown provided top notch recreational opportunity and inspiration.  “We kept enjoying bigger and bigger expeditions and objectives,” Skye said of their skiing, climbing, sailing and hiking pursuits.

Skye’s adventures eventually led him to frequent the Alaska Range, home to many notable peaks, including Denali. “I spent the last three seasons in the Alaska Range on Denali, so I'd like to say I’m one year away from a degree in the Denali Wilderness,” Skye laughed.

It was on North America’s highest peak that the idea for Alpine Gremlins came about. 

“It felt very natural when we started a business that it would revolve around being outside and creating products for those activities,” Skye said. “As we did those things outdoors, we became passionate about keeping the environment clean.”

Their first product, the Dyneema Pack Liner, aims to thwart our excessive use and disposal of plastics in the backcountry.   

“The goal of this is to reduce the plastic waste that comes out of the backcountry, or worse, stays in the backcountry,” Dylan said. “Plastic bags are prone to ripping, and that’s the value of Dyneema. If you buy one, then you’ll likely have it for the rest of your career.”

“Knowing that our pack liners result in fewer trash bags and less microtrash means so much to us,” Skye added. 

While both Skye and Dylan share the role of “taping” the Dyneema bags, Skye is the primary sewer. “Dylan and I both have a long history of playing with duct tape and electrical tape,” Skye laughed, “we are very good at taping, and Dyneema tape is by far our favorite.”

Made with 0.51oz Dyneema Composite Fabric and double-sewn with taped seams, the ultralight and ultra-durable pack liner gives users the power of Dyneema without the price tag of an entire Dyneema-made pack. The zipperless design reduces weight and eliminates the risk of zipper failure in the backcountry.

Dylan and Skye’s excitement about Alpine Gremlin’s is impossible to contain. “Looking at our big orders of pack liners and realizing this is something we came up with and people are using them to help them perform better on their adventure … It made us both stop and pause and feel incredibly proud. You can’t help but smile,” Skye said.

“But it’s so much more than just a pack liner,” Skye said. “It’s an extension of our friendship.”

“We have everything at our disposal, the only limit is creativity. All of our products are creative, redefining and solving problems,” Sky added.

“The full vision is still revealing itself,” Dylan said of the brand’s mission. “We’re definitely still in the beginning stages. As we interact with the external world outside of our company, we don’t want to just be a business that sells products, but we want to create a community and a sense of passion around the products.”

“We want to continue innovating and we have more ideas than can fill a legal pad,” Skye added. “As long as we have that drive and passion to innovate, that's what we’ll do.”

Dyneema Pack Liner by Alpine Gremlins

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