ULA Equipment is a pack and bag brand founded in Logan, Utah, in 2001.
In 2007 Sally McMaster tried to buy her husband, Chris, a ULA Catalyst for Christmas. It was backordered, and the founder was out hiking. The retailer mentioned he might sell. In 2009 the McMasters bought the company and moved it out of the founder's garage into an actual shop in Logan.
That founder, Brian Frankle, had started ULA in Logan in 2001, two years after a Pacific Crest Trail hike that cut his base weight roughly in half. The next owner, Peter Longobardi, bought a Catalyst 300 miles into the Appalachian Trail, then damaged its bottom panel sliding down rocks in the White Mountains. ULA fixed it, "real nonchalantly," he recalls. Chris McMaster told him no for ten years, then offered to sell in 2020. Running ULA, Longobardi has said, taught him "I really don't know anything about how to size a backpack."
ULA says every pack is cut and sewn in its Logan shop, which reached 9,000 square feet in 2021. In 2024 the Ultra Dragonfly sold out within hours of each weekly drop, and ULA won't run a wait list. Somebody out there is waiting on one, which is how the McMasters got into this.
ULA offers six hipbelt sizes and says its fabric and fit options add up to hundreds of thousands of possible pack combinations.
