OUR ROOTS

The Outdoors Isn't Just a Hobby for Us. It's a Bloodline.

Some brands are created in a boardroom. Yampa Roots was born in the dirt, snow, and timber of the Colorado backcountry.

Look at the photo above. That's John C. Mobley, our great-great-great-grandfather. In 1861, at just 16 years old, he lied about his age to join the Union Army. After the war, he headed west, served two terms as a frontier sheriff, and then set his sights on the untamed wilderness of the Rocky Mountains.

In 1880, John and his wife Julia packed up their four children and headed over the treacherous Schofield Pass. The trail was so steep and rugged that he had to dismantle their wagon piece by piece and pack it on burros just to make it across. They wintered in the deep snow, and John went on to plot the land that would eventually become the town of Marble, Colorado.

John Mobley wasn't the kind of man who liked a crowd. When 50 people settled near his homestead at the confluence of the Crystal River and Avalanche Creek, a spot known as "Mobley's Corral", he decided it was getting too crowded. He packed up his family, his horses, and his cattle, and pushed further into the wild. He and his son learned to speak the Ute language, trading and surviving in a landscape that broke lesser men.

That restless spirit, that deep need to be out past where the pavement ends, didn't die with him. It was passed down through generations, taking root in the Yampa Valley where our family grew up hunting, fishing, hiking, and respecting the high country.

That is what Yampa Roots is. We create apparel for the modern outdoorsman, but the spirit behind it is as old as "Mobley's Corral." We design for the hunters tracking elk through heavy timber, the anglers standing in freezing rivers, the hikers pushing for the summit, and anyone who feels the same itch John Mobley felt when the valley got too crowded.

When you wear Yampa Roots, you aren't just wearing an outdoor brand. You're wearing a piece of pioneer heritage.