For Bill Amos, having the right clothes can be a matter of life and death.
The Salem alpine climber depends on jackets and pants to keep him warm and dry in some of earth’s harshest environments.
His passion for the sport led him to found NW Alpine, a small outdoor apparel company that manufactures all its clothing in the U.S., mostly with American materials. Their focus: make a few items really well that mountaineers can wear for years.
“We’ve had people take our stuff … every continent, big first ascents in Pakistan and Alaska,” Amos said. “I feel pretty confident that our products have been tested in the environment in the most extreme ways possible.”
The company now has a south Salem retail store that opened in October and doubles as the operational headquarters for the company.
It’s a new chapter for NW Alpine, which Amos founded in Portland in 2010. The company moved operations to Newberg when it outgrew its Portland space, then to Salem in 2018.
At their peak in Salem, they employed 75 people and filled contract orders for other outdoor companies in addition to manufacturing their own garments.
But the pandemic shuttered their apparel business overnight as companies canceled orders and people stopped buying outdoor clothing. Amos shifted Salem operations to manufacturing gowns and masks for hospitals during the pandemic. That business dried up when imports from China reopened. Amos decided to close the Salem factory in 2022.
NW Alpine has since contracted with other U.S. factories in Los Angeles and Baltimore and until recently was shipping orders out of a warehouse in Tualatin.
Their new storefront, which opened in October, is a relaunch of sorts for the company.
Amos now works with Caleb Wallace, who came on in the spring to help run the company’s marketing. They’re hoping to turn the 3,000 square foot space at 2361 12th St. S.E. into a new hub of outdoor adventure in Salem.
“It’s really been a big resurrection,” Wallace said.
A values-focused business
Amos started his own apparel brand to push back against the rapid growth and offshoring of many outdoor brands in the 2000s.
He watched as companies like Patagonia that started as small niche outfitters for climbers became massive global corporations that moved production outside the U.S. Some have since grown into billion-dollar brands that manufacture mostly lifestyle clothing.
“You can’t do that responsibly,” Amos said of the rapid growth of Patagonia and other outdoor retailers. “You cannot create a supply chain that is, you know, good.”
Amos and Wallace said domestic manufacturing is the best way to ensure that their products meet both the environmental and labor standards they want to uphold.
Absent that, Wallace said there’s no good way to ensure your clothes aren’t made with child or forced labor — a reality that’s often obscured through opaque supply chains and mazes of subcontractors.
“I think the most politically correct thing that you could do is care about where your stuff is made and how it’s made,” Wallace said.
The growth of fast fashion in recent years means that most apparel brands constantly cycle through new styles and designs, generating large amounts of waste in the process.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated Americans threw away 17 million tons of textiles in 2018.
“That’s a big problem in all in the outdoor industry and all apparel, is that there’s too much stuff,” Amos said.
Amos said he still hears from customers who are adventuring in jackets they bought when the company opened 14 years ago.
Wallace recalled recently taking a spill while mountain biking in the Mount Hood area, sliding about 20 feet down a creek bed. His shoulder came out with heavy bruising and he was covered in mud, but the NW Alpine base layer he was wearing was fine.
“That shirt just been, like, shredded, basically,” Wallace said. “It’s still usable, which is sick.”
Despite making clothes in the U.S., the company’s products are priced comparably to other big outdoor brands. Their Volo outdoor pants are $99, and their lightweight sun-resistant hoody is priced at $78. Amos said it’s possible because their focus isn’t on maximizing profit or growth at the expense of everything else.
“We make margins that are good enough for us to exist,” Amos said.
A new start
The new store is part of a larger plan to do more to publicize the brand, which few people were aware of even when it was manufacturing in Salem.
Instead of using a warehouse, everything sewn in their factories now ships directly to Salem.
Amos and Wallace inspect each item by hand before it goes out the door. Their items sell at independent outdoor stores and customers can order online.
The company contracts with one local seamstress, Lupe Moreno, who was an original employee and still makes their belay jacket — a super warm, large jacket intended to be worn when climbers are sitting still for extended periods on long climbs to assist partners up a rock face.
Wallace outfitted their entire storefront for $800, most of which paid for storage racks for apparel in the back. The customer-facing side of the store was decorated largely with items scouted for free on Facebook Marketplace, including a discarded mannequin sporting one of their jackets and a puffy vest. Seating for customers in their lobby is old church pews, and the pair’s bouldering crash pads serve as decor.
With the closure of Salem Summit Company last year, Amos and Wallace said they want to fill a void for Salem’s outdoor community by offering a space for people to gather and learn.
They’re hosting a class on avalanche awareness on Thursday, Dec. 12 at 6:30 p.m., and hope to put on other programming.
“I wanted to see a space for the community to come hang out and adventure to start from,” Wallace said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
