A Q&A with Dan Durston

In 2009, back before most companies were working with Dyneema, biologist and thru-hiker Dan Durston began building the ultralight gear he wished was on the market. Flash forward a decade and his company, Durston Gear, now makes highly-sought-after tents and gear for backpackers. Dan prides himself on his direct engagement with the community he’s created through online forums and a Durston Tents Subreddit. In a recent Q&A, Dan and Hiker Box Editor Angie Stevens talked business origin stories, completing the first yo-yo of Canada’s Great Divide Trail, and holding onto customer connections. 

TM: You’ve been sewing your own gear for a long longer than you’ve been selling it.  Why were you drawn to design your own tents when other good ones were on the market? What did you feel was missing across the industry in terms of functionality and design?

DD: The first tent that I built was essentially a clone of the REI Quarterdome T2 in 2009, which I rebuilt to save weight. I had purchased the REI tent, but as I got really into ultralight backpacking, I wanted it to be lighter, so I started rebuilding it out of lighter materials. I purchased some custom carbon tent poles and cut those to fit the tent, and then started on the bigger project of remaking the nylon tent fly out of Dyneema composite fabric (called “cuben fiber” at the time).  

I owned a lot of [tents], including models from MLD, Locus Gear, Tarptent, Six Moon Designs, and Hyperlite. I realized that I really enjoyed the simplicity of the pyramid style tents from MLD and Locus Gear, but also appreciated the livability of some of the other more complex designs. That created in me a desire to come up with a design that could provide both simplicity and space. I wanted more internal volume than a pyramid, without complicating the pitch beyond a rectangle shape.

That was a design challenge that resonated in my head as I hiked the PCT in 2014 and then again in 2017 on the Great Divide Trail. On the PCT, I thought of a lot of poor ways to do it, where I could add space but always with too much of a loss in simplicity and weight. Eventually I realized that the solution had to be using both trekking poles. Once I was focused on getting two trekking poles inside of a simple rectangle fly shape, the X-Mid layout quickly came into focus where I put the trekking poles on one diagonal while putting the floor on the opposite diagonal. This 'double diagonal' floorplan is now what we are best known for.

TM: I know you were initially working as a fisheries biologist before you jumped into your company full-time. How did you get Durston Gear off the ground and differentiate your designs in an industry with many other competitors?

DD: We have a unique origin story because there was honestly no intent to create a business. After I thought of the X-Mid layout, I wanted to sew one for myself, but after spending months sewing my first tent, I knew what a hard project it would be and was intimidated. At that time, I was a minor blogger in the ultralight world, which led a U.S. company reaching out to me out of the blue because they were looking for gear ideas they could bring to market. I just wanted a tent for myself, and thought working with them might be easier than fully sewing it myself, so I agreed to a project where I would provide drawings to them and they would have a small run of the tents professionally built. 

We ended up doing several rounds of prototyping and launching that tent in 2018 as the X-Mid 1. I only made a very small royalty on those tents and it remained primarily a way to get one built for myself, but soon after the tents launched they really took off in popularity––yet at the same time the company decided to get out of the outdoor market. Suddenly I was left with a lot of people asking me for a tent, so I had to step in and figure out how to keep getting them built. That led to a transition where, instead of licensing the design to someone, I was running a small gear company as I worked to keep the tents available.

I like to think our tents stand out within the industry due to the more functional and simple design––and that is a big part of it––but also I think people appreciate the passion and community involvement that goes into it. For years before I had gear to sell, I was very engaged online, so when my tent was released, it came naturally to me to support our customers through all the various online platforms.

TM: Your gear is especially well-loved in the ultralight thru-hiking community. Can you detail your long-distance experience and what draws thru-hikers to your tents in particular?

DD: I am an enthusiastic person, so when I get into something, I really get into it. In the case of ultralight backpacking, I quickly got very into the gear but also got just as much into the hiking side of it. I started with shorter hikes around 30 to 90 kilometers, and then kept on pursuing bigger adventures such as the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open, which is a [roughly] 100-mile event in Montana where you plan your own route across the Rockies in the off-season. I did that most years from 2012 to 2020 and often did 90 to 120 miles in 2 or 3 days. Soon after that started, in 2014 my wife and I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail as a big step up in adventure. There were highs and lows but overall we loved the adventure and the simple thru-hiking life, so when we had the opportunity to thru-hike again in 2017, we did the first yo-yo (there and back) of Canada's 700-mile Great Divide Trail. 

Through all that, I think I developed a good judgement for what people need on a trip like that. You need lightweight [gear], but you also want simplicity, reliability and good livability. A tent that is small or hard to pitch, or lets rain fall in the door might work fine on a short trip, but when you use it every day, you need better solutions. That well rounded, intuitive, and simple approach is what I try to accomplish with our gear.

TM: While scaling your business and watching it grow, what value is there for you in ensuring that you, as the owner of the company, have a hand in everything from design to testing to customer service?

DD: As we have grown, it has been challenging knowing which parts of the business to personally hold onto and which to get help with. Ideally I would love to do it all, but as we have grown, I've had to prioritize. 

The most important areas for me to hold onto have been the product design and the community connection. I have people that help me with shipping, logistics, and accounting––all the non-customer focused things––whereas for design and community I've tried to remain as involved as I possibly can. I expect I will always be at the core of our designs for a long time to come, as I care too much to step back from that. For the community, I answered every email for years but eventually there was just too much. Even spending the whole day on email, I couldn't keep up, so now we have a small team that helps with one-on-one customer support, but still I remain connected daily to our user groups on Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram. I reply to people every day on these platforms, and also work to create content to support the community, like our product videos and social media posts. That connection also lets me get tons of feedback on how well the product is working, which in turn supports future designs. I think that community feedback cycle is one of our unique strengths. We do really listen and constantly iterate, which lets us develop gear that is more in touch with what is working for hikers.