My name is Scott, and I am the Bear Theorist

I love being outside  

I love hiking  

I love camping 

I love mountain biking 

I could go on. You get the picture.  

Additionally, I learned very young that time and resources are finite and manipulating the use of them is the key to living more fully. Maybe a better word is prioritization, but in the end the idea that we don’t have to be completely subject to time and resources is a more powerful perspective.  

This is why I love the story of running from the bear! “You don’t have to be the fastest, but you can’t be the slowest!” 

To me, this manipulation, prioritization, and tongue in cheek saying is Bear Theory. 

After agonizing over the best way to get my family outdoors with less fuss, material expense, space, and time, in essence trying to “outsmart the bear” I landed on the concept for my prototype hard sided popup.  

Now I want more people to be enabled to go outdoors with their families without having to make so many compromises that they don’t even start the adventure.  

Why Trailers? 

Did I mention I love camping?  

If you asked me 10 years ago if staying in a trailer was camping, I’d have said no.  

Realistically I still tend to believe that “camping” is reserved as a designation for a rugged backcountry backpacking trip. Again, in the pursuit of what matters all I really want to do is get outside and share experiences with those I love. Plus, with the rise of overlanding, van life, and the crowded nature of so many fantastic backpacking trails in the US should we really split hairs on semantics?  

AND, let's face it, camping with little kids can be challenging. Even a 3-week trip with your significant other covering thousands of miles where you want to make sure that you have enough gear for each of the amazing destinations you have planned suddenly makes your daily driver look horribly under-equipped.  

So, in the summer of 2020 we did what every other family in America did. We vacationed outside and got a new puppy. To be more specific we rented a 20ft trailer, hitched it to my wife’s AWD daily driver and drove from California to the eastern edge of Tennessee and back. The trip was a blistering 2 weeks covering nearly 6000 miles and we learned a lot about the pros and cons of trailers.  

On the plus side, towing a bed, kitchen, bathroom, and gear hauler was a game changer for a long trip with kids. pretty incredible.  

But rather than go into the cons, I’ll tell you that while we were driving back, I began to hatch a plan for something that would have all of the benefits that made the trip doable, provide better outdoors experience, and be far easier to live with on a daily basis during and after the trip. Oh, and something that doesn’t fall apart crossing windy Wyoming should be a good starting point.  

What I really wanted was a small well-built trailer that towed and lived like a teardrop but comfortably slept our family of 4 plus a dog. That’s it.  

Wind/Elements. You might like it; you might hate it. One thing I know for certain, a tent in the wind sucks. Guess what nearly all pop-ups have as walls? Tent material. Great for weight savings, not so much sleeping in the wind or cold.   

Space. Specifically for cooking. Unless you’re choosing to invest your retirement savings in a 5th wheel land yacht complete with a diesel 3/4-ton pickup, a trailer kitchen is a joke. No counter space, no fridge space, and certainly no space for more than 1 person to exist between the bed and dinette. And the outdoors? Well, if you’re lucky there’s a tiny window from which you can peer out and see all the people not stuck inside while you’re trying to make a 3-course meal in as few pans as possible.  

Weight. Most RVs that tick the usability boxes typically require a vehicle with a sizable tow rating if not just for the capacity but just for stability. At the same time towing is no joke, and no one should think that towing with a compact car is reasonable on a regular basis. For me the holy grail is something that anyone with a Subaru Outback can manage with ease FULLY LOADED.  

Quality. Unfortunately, the shortcut to weights savings is low quality materials. In addition, for some reason, we have become far too numb to products being somewhat consumable and throw-away. I firmly believe that good products should both be highly producible AND high quality, lasting year even in the presence of the elements: wind, rain, snow, sun, children, and pets.  

Access. Like vacation properties, exotic cars, and rare paintings, most of us don’t have the means or realistic justification for large purchases like RVs. If experiences with the ones we love are what we’re really after renting will make sense for the vast majority of people. Our fleet and locations, and meal options need to create all the benefits of owning without the large upfront investment and ongoing storage and maintenance costs.