With Wayne Gregory’s background in scouting and other youth-oriented causes, helping kids get outdoors has always been a passion at Gregory. Because of that, Gregory will be a fixture on a couple of upcoming climbs of California’s Mount Whitney, organized by the Bay Area Wilderness Training’s Climbing for Kids program. Gregory recently donated 20 of its new Baltoro 70 packs for the upcoming climbs, and has donated many packs over recent years for BAWT’s gear loaner program for youth groups.
If you’re not familiar with Climbing for Kids, it’s a fundraiser through which participants who take part in climbs of Whitney and five other North American summits raise money for Bay Area Wilderness Training. BAWT, in turn, uses that money to get underprivileged and at-risk kids from more urban parts of the Bay Areas outdoors, helping them learn new skills and learn about themselves in the process.
What’s interesting about Bay Area Wilderness Training, though, is that they don’t organize the trips themselves. They put resources at people’s disposal to make it easier to get kids outside. For instance, they provide training for adult leaders to learn about outdoor safety, wilderness travel, first aid, and leadership skills. They also maintain a stock of gear in several different locations - everything from backpacks to headlamps to tents and sleeping bags - that youth groups of various sorts can borrow to get kids outside. And they instituted a new program recently that gives such groups access to vans at very low costs to help provide transportation for outdoor trips.
The idea - which makes a lot of sense - is to make it easier for adults who are part of kids lives every day to help them discover new skills, get outdoors, and a have an adventure. They want people who know those kids to take them out so that it becomes something they can do again with these people, rather than offering a one-time outing that kids may not be able to do again. Not to mention, it lets them have an adventure with someone who’s a role model in their lives, rather than someone they’ve just met.
The late May and early June Whitney climbs are the first of the season, but this summer and fall Climbing for Kids will also be climbing Shasta, Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, the Grand Teton and Pico de Orizaba with fundraisers. Not a bad way to raise some money for a good cause.
Hello,
I am looking for a great backpack for a 12 year old who has been measured to wear a 15 inch. Do the men style backpacks come in an extra small, or should I go with one of the women’s styles? ( If I can get him to go along with that!) I have had several people recommend Gregory packs.
Thanks
Suzanne
Suzanne, thanks for the interest in Gregory.
Gregory builds the men’s sizes in small through large frames (each frame has a two-inch range of adjustment), which means the small frame size goes down to 16 inches.
So you are correct - to get a pack that would properly fit a 15-inch torso, you’d need to get an extra small, which in this case would mean one of the women’s packs. Definitely more important to have a properly fit torso size than to be in a men’s pack, but we do understand that that may or may not fly with a 12-year-old!