YETI Blog
Guest Post: Zach Collier
In this next installment of our Guest Posts, professional whitewater rafting guide Zach Collier shows us how just how much fun you can have on a river and how he uses YETI Coolers in his business. Zach is the owner/outfitter of Northwest Rafting Company and the Sundance Kayak School in Hood River, OR. He has been guiding raft trips for the past 15 years, leading trips throughout the Pacific Northwest and to such exotic destinations as Costa Rica, Honduras, Chile, Bhutan, Nepal and Siberia.
During the summers, you’ll find us hard at work in our office: the famous Wild and Scenic Rogue River in Southern Oregon. The Rogue was one of the original 8 rivers to be included in the “Wild and Scenic Rivers Act” of 1968. It is an American classic and a place that people travel from all over the country to raft. Our 4-day rafting trips and 6-day kayak schools journey through the Rogue’s scenic corridors throughout the summer.
Southern Oregon summers are hot, damned hot. Temperatures can easily exceed 100 degrees day after day, and it’s imperative that our food stays cold. If the Rogue is our office, our YETIs are our desks. They provide us with the food storage we need to serve the high-quality and fresh ingredients that our guests have come to expect. We have even been known to make riverside sushi now that we have our YETIs!
Our most famous rafting trips are the Brews with Views, which feature microbrewers, Sierra Nevada, Double Mountain and Deschutes Breweries, to join us for a trip downriver. For these trips we bring 5-6 pony kegs of beer for guests to sample each evening around camp. To ensure that each brew pours ice-cold, we created a jockey box out of one of our YETIs, which impresses the brewers and guests alike!
Our thanks to YETI Coolers for making such a top-notch product. Because we run expedition-style trips, we are always seeking the highest quality equipment, and YETI simply makes the best coolers out there.
To learn more about the amazing trips offered by Northwest Rafting Company and Sundance Kayak School, you can visit their websites or call (541) 450-9855.
Support in the South
The recent rash of tornadoes produced massive destruction in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and affected several other areas throughout the Southern and Eastern United States. This is the heart of YETI country, and our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the people whose lives were affected.
The people of those areas have responded with overwhelming efforts, donations and contributions. We have received numerous reports from YETI owners that their coolers have been instrumental in relief efforts, providing ice and fresh water to those people left without. We wanted to share some of these images with you, including a clip from NBC Nightly News.
Cullman, AL - Brad Smith's YETI Cooler aiding in relief efforts.
Another shot from Brad Smith. This entire block was bulldozed the following day.
This 100+ foot tree fell on Hunter Devazier's cooler.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
If you would like to help the relief efforts, please click the American Red Cross logo below to make a donation.
Will Work for Beer
Like you, we work hard all week helping customers, shipping orders, and growing the YETI brand. So when the weekend comes, we are just as excited to be able to use our YETI Coolers for a little R&R. A couple of weeks ago, the weekend started a little early at our new facility when our good friends (and neighbors!) from Live Oak Brewing Company showed up with some of their finest product.
Needless to say, The YETI Coolers team was very receptive to the amazing Live Oak Pilz and Big Bark Amber Lager they were passing out. And to make it even tastier, they had actually converted one of our Tundra 155 coolers into a killer jockey box. As you can see, they engineered it to actually hold two pony kegs plus the CO2 tank and all the hardware.
If you are going to be in Austin one weekend, we highly recommend checking out our friends at Live Oak Brewing Company and even taking a tour of the brewery (most Saturdays at noon, more info here).
To learn how to make your own jockey box, check out our previous blog post with detailed instructions.
New Digs
After several great years out in Driftwood, TX, we recently moved YETI Coolers Headquarters to a new facility in East Austin. While we will certainly miss being regulars at The Salt Lick and The Nutty Brown Cafe, we are very excited about all the great things that our new neighborhood has to offer. But with places like La Playa, Arkie’s Grill, and Cisco’s in the neighborhood, we are not going to starve.
Fixing it up, getting settled, moving inventory…needless to say we have been busy. We definitely have to give credit to Tim and the rest of our warehouse team who made the transition smooth and continued shipping out orders seamlessly, even when working from two locations. As you can see, we tapped into our own talent pool and got Micah and Blue to paint our sign on the front of the building.
A big part of our old offices were all the stickers that adorned the walls, doors and cubes. It was a tradition that started early on at YETI Coolers, and helped us show some love to the brands, restaurants, bars, organizations and other things that were dear to us. Here is a shot of the door to the old “burn room” where we apply Custom Logos to coolers:
We need your help!
Now that we are moved into our new offices, we want to continue the sticker tradition on all these freshly painted walls. We want your stickers to help decorate! So, here’s the deal: you mail us some of your stickers, we will put them up in our offices, post a picture on our Facebook page, and send you stickers in return. Free stickers and free publicity…Awesome deal for everybody, right? All you have to do is mail us your stickers and contact info to:
YETI Coolers
c/o Sticker Swap
PO Box 163686
Austin, TX 78716-3686
We look forward to seeing what arrives!
Guest Post: Simon Perkins
This is the first in a new series of Guest Posts where we will feature writings of some of the YETI Pros and Guides. Our first guest writer is Simon Perkins, professional fly fishing and bird hunting guide with PRO Outfitters of Helena, Montana. Simon is also an accomplished writer, photographer and videographer, having authored articles published in Big Sky Journal, Orvis News and more.
I don’t work a 9-to-5. I work a 6-to-10. There is something extremely gratifying about having your workday dictated by the natural sunlight. Although if you are talking about Montana in the summer, that means a long day at the office. But in most cases, particularly mine, it also suggests that your office is located smack-dab in the middle of paradise.
I work as a fly-fishing guide for PRO Outfitters. For the first half of the summer, when water levels tend to be most cooperative, we run 5-day expeditions down the Smith River in central Montana. If you haven’t floated the Smith, put it on your list immediately. The river has one public put-in, one public take-out, and sixty miles of breathe-taking canyon in between. I’m talking limestone cliffs rising a thousand feet straight up out of the water, looking down on a pristine freestone river full of healthy and heavy Browns and Rainbows. The hatches, specifically Golden Stones, can be epic, resulting in some of the best dry fly fishing you can find. Picture floating downstream, casting toward a canyon wall and landing your dry fly 3-inches off the rock. But it isn’t close enough. You recast, this time within an inch of the wall. You mend, get a decent drift, and then the explosion. You struggle to keep the fish on while your guide works the boat into slower water, where you eventually hold up a 20+ inch brown trout with golden sides, dark black spots, and an emerald green back.
Yeah, my office is pretty damn sweet.
With fishing trips, there are certain things you can’t control. No matter how impressively I try to sing to the heavens at night, I have no say over the weather, the water conditions, or the mood of the trout. But at PRO, we try to impress with all that we can control. Intangibly speaking, this means knowledge, work ethic, instruction, and good humor. Tangibly, I’m mainly referring to food and accommodations, neither of which can be undervalued. And we need to pack everything necessary for the full 5-day trip.
In addition to the four guides, our crew consists of two gear-boaters and a chef, arguably the MVP’s of our expedition. When the fishing boats come into camp at the end of the day, everything is set up (including a kitchen fly, a wall-tent dining area, and a large 8-man tent for each pair of guests) and appetizers and cocktails are on the table. The food is awesome, and it gets better with each day of the trip, ending with crab cakes and a New York strip on the last evening. Obviously, in order to offer meals like this, we have to be able to keep stuff cold for a long time. And Montana summers can get hot. YETIs are a must and an essential part the first-class dining experience. We travel with a 155 Qt in each gear boat and 65 Qts in each guide boat (on day 5, you don’t want to be handing a client a lukewarm beer!). Before we had YETIs, we were constantly worrying about how to keep stuff cold throughout the trip. Not anymore. Plus, we now view the Smith River’s black bear population purely as a remarkable feature of the fauna landscape, and not a pest that will raid and destroy our coolers.
Sixteen hours can seem like a long workday, but it isn’t when that day begins and ends with the sound of a river running beneath towering canyon walls that reach up toward Montana’s big sky. I’ve heard people complain about tedious schedules that occasionally force them to sleep in their office. Well, that’s what I’m stuck with and I couldn’t feel luckier.
To learn more about the amazing trips that PRO Outfitters offers, visit their website www.prooutfitters.com or call 800-858-3497.
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Look Who's Using YETI
George Pugh
"This is the best customer service I have ever received on any type of product that I own."
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Arnie Chandola Northwest Voyageurs Little Salmon Lodge
"YETI coolers are one of the best I have seen. Simple, tough and keeps ice for 5 days in 117 degree heat!"
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Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC)
"The YETI Tundra coolers withstand smashing, prying, scratching, biting, and tossing by hungry bears."
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John Merwin Field Editor, Field & Stream
"Having spent a lifetime using cheap coolers with hinges and fasteners that inevitably break, I'm glad to see that the YETI is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. There are 2 full inches of insulation inside the rotomolded body and lid. Hinges are recessed toavoid knocks, and the lid has a massive, freezer-type seal."
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Pat Reeve & Nicole Jones Driven TV
"We use our YETI Coolers when traveling out of state to hunt big bucks. They are durable and most importantly keep our meat and capes cool so we can get them back home for processing! We don't leave home without one!"
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Babe Winkelman Good Fishing and Outdoor Secrets TV
"YETI Coolers are superior ... from the hinges and latches to the tough-as-nails construction. Best of all, they keep everything colder, longer! You can spend less and get a cooler that will fail after a couple years of hard use. Or you can step up to a YETI and own the world's finest cooler that will never let you down."
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Rick and Julie Kreuter Beyond the Hunt TV
"As professional guides we want professional equipment. YETI Coolers are definitely professional grade!"
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Dick Scorzafava The Radical Bowhunter
"The YETI Coolers are the Rolls Royce of all coolers. I have taken mine on several flights already and they even stand up to the baggage handlers in the airports. That's the quality I need in a product."
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Flip Pallot Legendary fisherman/ TV show host
"I've been buying coolers all my life! So have you! I'm THROUGH, DONE, FINISHED! I've got my YETI now. All I have to worry about is what to put in it."
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Mike Hanback Big Deer, Inc.
"I got the YETI Tundra cooler, it's awesome, a real hunter's tool."
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Capt. Scott Swartz Founder of the Florida Fly Fishing Schools and Atlanta Fly Fishing School
"I bought the YETI 105 Tundra today. Wow, this thing is built like a truck!"
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Bob Popovics
"Just received my 85qt. Tundra..What a beauty!! GREAT quality is an understatement!"
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Brad
"I just received my Tundra 65 qt YETI!! I figured it would be built better than the competition, but I dint think it would be THIS STRONG. The handlesand hinges are great, the seal is superb. Hell, its built better than the 'fridge in my home!! We learned a tough lesson in Houston after Hurricane Ike. There's no such thing as too much ice chest. It's a fact, we may not haveanother hurricane for another 10 years...OR we may have a cat 5 NEXT YEAR, either way, I'll be better prepared with this YETI cooler."
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William Gillespie
"I just took a 45qt. and 65qt. YETI Tundra for testing on a 5 day Smith float in Montana...Impressive!"
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Jeff McDonald
"Ya'll build one tough cooler. I have a fishing camp on Big Lake in Hackberry Louisiana. When Hurrican Ike came through, we had 5 ft of water under the camp from the storm surge. I found my YETI a quarter mile away, some 100 yards back in a tallow tree swamp. Other than a few scratches, it cleaned up very well. I am very happy to have it back. Great product!"
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