Merrit Geary had hiked and fished in wrong pants for the last time. Standing in her Bozeman apartment, frustrated after another day on the trail in gear that bunched, sagged, and somehow managed to be both too loose and too tight in all the wrong places, she made a decision that would reshape how women gear up for Montana's mountains.
"I can't even tell you how many times I hiked or fished in pants that weren't made for that sport simply because I wasn't going to be comfortable in anything else," Geary tells me from Alpen Outdoors' headquarters, where the Gallatin Range fills the windows and reminds you daily why getting the gear right matters so much here.
What started as personal frustration became something bigger when Geary spent Alpen's first seven months on what she calls her listening tour. She reached out to women across the Mountain West, having conversations about place and purpose, independence and freedom, and what the outdoors meant to each of them. The stories were different, but the gear complaints were remarkably similar.
You know that feeling when you finally find jeans that actually fit your body instead of some theoretical average? That's what Geary was chasing, except for technical outdoor gear. She wasn't interested in shrinking men's designs or adding pink colorways to existing patterns. She wanted to start from scratch, with women's bodies and women's adventures as the foundation, not an afterthought.
The Ridge Pant became Alpen's flagship because it solved problems Geary had lived with for years. Working with a former Marmot designer, they built the pants from recycled stretch nylon with a softshell construction that moves with you whether you're scrambling up Hyalite Peak or casting into the Gallatin River. The reinforcement hits exactly where women need it most—not where men do.
""What you wear affects how you feel, how you perform and how you show up outdoors.""
In Bozeman, where you might ski Bridger Bowl in the morning and trail run the M Trail at sunset, versatility isn't a marketing buzzword—it's survival. The Ridge Pant 2.0 reflects this reality, designed for women who refuse to compromise between performance and comfort, between durability and fit.
Walking through downtown Bozeman, you'll pass plenty of outdoor shops selling gear from the usual suspects. But Alpen represents something different happening in mountain towns across America—founders who got tired of making do and decided to make something better instead. Geary's approach isn't revolutionary because it's complicated; it's revolutionary because it's obvious once you think about it: start with the user, not the industry.
The Absaroka Fleece takes its name from the mountain range that rises east of Bozeman, where you need layers that work whether you're skinning up at dawn or sitting around a campfire after dark. Like everything Alpen makes, it's built with the assumption that women want gear that performs as well as what the guys get, not a consolation prize.
What strikes you about Geary's story isn't just the product development—it's the community building that happened first. Those seven months of conversations weren't market research in the traditional sense. They were relationship building with the women who would become Alpen's first customers, advocates, and inspiration.
"I was so tired of feeling like a second thought among most outdoor brands," Geary explains. "From pants to jackets and most everything in-between, women's products always lacked what the men's had—durability, differentiation, and a high-quality fit."
The brand's "Women of Alpen" series showcases the athletes and adventurers who test the gear in conditions that would make most of us reconsider our weekend plans. These aren't sponsored athletes with perfect Instagram feeds—they're the women you actually meet on the trail, the ones who know which couloirs hold snow longest and where to find the best fishing holes.
Bozeman has become a magnet for this kind of thinking, where proximity to world-class terrain meets a growing community of entrepreneurs who won't settle for "good enough." When you can ski the Bridgers, fish the Madison, and trail run the Gallatin Crest all in the same week, you need gear that keeps up. And if that gear doesn't exist, you might just have to make it yourself.
Next time you're driving through the Gallatin Valley, with the Bridgers rising to the north and the Gallatins to the south, think about all the gear decisions that happen in vehicles along this stretch of I-90. The choice between comfort and performance, between settling and demanding better. Geary chose better, and now women from Montana to Maine are hiking in pants that were actually made for them. Sometimes the best ideas are the most obvious ones—you just need someone willing to act on them.
