Many a great story has begun with, "It all started in my garage..." If you hear that opener, you can be pretty sure you're in for wild ride that's either inspirational, or crazy, or both. And so it goes for Kelley Smith and Kokopelli, a brand that was born after a memorable outdoor trip on the water, and (of course) a vision. For Kelley and two of his longtime friends, it was to make it easier to get out in nature, and to get further into nature.
Fast forward ten years, we packed up a whole mess of camping and camera gear to join the Kokopelli team in Moab to celebrate a decade of game changing products and packrafting adventures. In addition to a small fleet of packrafts and paddles, the Kokopelli crew also brought their new line of bike bags. We got to film and photograph everything from canyoneering up and down the incredible Utah sandstone, to mountain biking at dawn along the Kokopelli Trail (yep, the very namesake of the brand), to rafting down the Colorado River, to campfire camaraderie.
To commemorate the brand's 10-year anniversary, as well as capture a glimpse of where it's headed in the coming decade, we created a whole package of visual content: a brand anthem video, a 10-year narrative video, feature videos for both the new Durango bike bag line and the Feather Pump, plus 200 still photos documenting the entire trip. Hiking and rappelling with camera gear, dunking cameras with underwater housing in the river, and flying drones off mountain sides, our time in Moab lived up to the brand's tagline of "Venture Further."
The culture of Kokopelli is positively infectious. Generous, fun-loving, and truly devoted to all things outdoors, theirs is a community that walks the walk, and makes amazing gear that not only makes that walk much more enjoyable, but also keeps it going toward destinations you may have only stared at wistfully in postcards... until now.
Photography by Steven Paschall & RC Walker
