Our Gear Review Process and Affiliate Disclosure
Greenbelly Meals (Who We Are)
Hey! We are Greenbelly Meals. We started in 2014 after our founder, Chris Cage, completed thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. He started making high-calorie bars in his mom's kitchen. Now Greenbelly fuels over 20,000 hikers all over the world.
In addition to making the best backpacking meals, we also love nerding out about anything and everything related to backpacking - ultralight gear, trail guides, how-to's - you name it.
Affiliate Disclosure (How We Make Money From Our Blog)
Some of the content we write about includes links to different product pages. If you purchase gear through those links, we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Note this is at no additional cost to you.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associate Program, Avantlink as well as several other individual sites.
This type of content is designed to give you honest insight when making a gear purchase. We do not get paid by any company to write about any gear item. We never have and never will. We have not and will not do any sponsored content. This ensures that all of our opinions are 100% objective.
Gear Review Process (How We Test)
We start off exhaustively researching the best products on the market based on things like specs, brand reputation, reader feedback, and product reviews. That list is then whittled down to a smaller list to include in a post.
Whether it is an individual gear review (like this jetboil stove review) or a list of recommended models (like this best backpacking tents post), many products are purchased at full price. Some products are given to us for free by manufacturers, in particular prior to launching on the market. It does not matter to us. Either way, we are going to provide unbiased advice and reviews.
About Our Testers (Our Experience)
We have a small team of writers that live and breathe the outdoors. They live and travel all over USA (and some internationally). They've spent hundreds of nights outside and have hiked thousands of miles. This helps give them invaluable insight when researching, writing about, and testing products. Here are some of our current writers:
SAM SCHILD (aka “Sia”)
Sam is a writer, thru-hiker, and bikepacker. He's thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Colorado Trail (3x), and the Grand Enchantment Trail. You can find him in Denver when he’s not out exploring in the mountains somewhere.
JUSTIN SPRECHER (aka "Semisweet")
Semisweet is a Wisconsin-based thru-hiker, adventurer and digital storyteller. He's thru-hiked the Pacific Northwest Trail, LASHed the Great Divide Trail and Arizona Trail, and sectioned hiked large parts of the Continental Divide Trail, amongst others.
AUSTIN HAGER
Austin Hager is a B.C. based thru-hiker and mountain explorer. He's thru-hiked the Great Divide Trail and 100s of kms in the Rockies and the Kootenays. You can find him hiking, climbing or snowboarding throughout the mountains of Western Canada.
DANA FELTHAUSER
Dana Felthauser is a climber who has thru-hiked the Annapurna Circuit Trek and Jiri-San mountains in Korea. He has climbed El Capitan over 4.5 days and summitted over 300 peaks.
REBECCA COOK (aka “Pepper”)
Becca is a nomad(ish) with a penchant for spending large chunks of time in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has completed the AT, JMT, TRT and LT amongst other several thru-hikes.