Alpacka Raft Founder Sheri Tingey Reaches Her Goal & Launches the Valkyrie, Built for Class V Whitewater [EP 369]

Today I’m talking with Colorado businesswoman Sheri Tingey. Sheri pioneered an entire adventure sport, while many her age were mulling retirement. Recently, on her 77th birthday, Sheri Tingey finally saw her dream come true.   Two decades and dozens of prototypes later, Alpacka Raft launched the Valkyrie. Suited for Class V whitewater, this Packraft is the closest resemblance of a hard shell kayak ever made. It’s the culmination of Sheri’s ambitions since she designed the modern-day Packraft and built the brand 22 years ago. Her idea blossomed into a 50-employee company, making the brand a leader in the outdoor industry and one of the largest employers in the small mountain town of Mancos, CO.

Facebook Twitter Instagram

The Outdoor Biz Podcast

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

Sign up for my Newsletter HERE. 

I'd love to get your feedback!

Contact me here: email: [e-mail]

or leave me a message on Speakpipe!

Brought to you by:

Thrive Market

Show Notes

Let's start with how you got into the outdoors.

You know, honestly, I've been in the outdoors from the time I can remember

I was born and raised in Phoenix. I, from the time I was a very small child, I hated the heat, didn't, you know, didn't want anything to do with that. But there was a camp out of Prescott and my dad would build cabins for them.

I only have a tiny memory of that, but by the next year, that and that camp was everything about being in the outdoors.

And how did you learn how to sew and make things?

I come from the generation that women still, you know, sewed.

My grandmother lived with us and she made all of our clothes, in those days. You know, today it, it is kind of interesting, sewing has become one of these lost arts that's sort of, redefining itself again.

But when I was young, clothing was very expensive and so most people sewed. My grandmother lived in a little tiny cabin out and back and she had a little singer. And you know, she didn't so much teach us as my sister and I would just watch her and she let us use the sewing machine. And so by the time Rogue was five and I was three. We started sewing.

Where'd you learn to kayak?

Yep. I, I had moved to Jackson Hole in 1967, and lived there for many years till we moved to Alaska. And I started kayaking. I got invited on a trip on the Owyhee River. Some friends who were, uh, ski friends who had and you, I'm trying to think, this would be about 1971.

Okay. Something like that. Mm-hmm. 72 maybe. And you know, at that time there were kayaks on the East coast and there were some kayaks in Seattle and Los Angeles, but almost nothing in the Rocky Mountains. Kayaking had not hit yet. I was a water fanatic and I am invited on this trip on the Owyhee River, and there were four kayaks and one raft. And I, of course, was in the raft and I had never seen kayaks before. And I took one look at those things and went, oh my God, this is the way you, you know, all of a sudden you have waves, you have water, it's like the ocean. So the, uh, last day of the trip, the three of us that were in the raft, they traded off and let us play in the kayaks. And I just was, you know, it was love the second I got in and I was like, oh my God, I am home.

Did that also get you in rafting?

You know, I was never a quote-unquote rafter. I think rafts are great, but particularly then, even now, you need a lot of stuff for a raft. You need at least four people and a lot of stuff. You need a good tr