One of the best parts of a long hike on a hot day is the cold drink you reward yourself with after straining up that canyon switchback. But as most hikers know, the hydrates you’re carrying are not going to be chilled. They’re going to be room (i.e. outside) temperature when you stop for that self gift swig, unless you’re dragging an ice chest along with you. Keeping things cold either requires power, which means batteries and/or fuel, or large quantities of heavy ice in a cooler, both of which are pretty counterintuitive to the concept of wilderness hiking.
Well now, thanks to the innovators at Chill.Systems, you can carry a sleek backpack, called a Chiller’s Pack, that’ll keep three, 12-oz. beer or soda cans, or a one-liter bottle of wine, nice and cool for up to six hours, no matter what the outside temperature. And if you love chocolate, the Chiller’s Pack can keep that bar of Godiva Masterpiece Dark Chocolate Ganache Hearts nice and crisp, instead of messy & gooey, all day. This is going to take the ice out of the portable cooling paradigm and replace it with lightweight, efficient, non-dripping cooling power that has never been available before. It is technology that’s environmentally friendly, easy to use, and about as foolproof as a hammer. And it should hover around a price-point that will make it about as easy to own as a fancy backpack.
HOW MANY DIFFERENT CHILLS ARE THERE?
And speaking of backpacks, Chill.Systems is also offering a Chiller Tote for over-the shoulder convenience coupled with a casual fashion look. Both of these enclosures feature the Chill.Systems “Chiller”, a base unit a little bigger than a football, which incorporates a freezing gel into the beverage holder as sleekly and efficiently as possible. The Chiller works completely without any ice. You just pop the Chiller into a freezer overnight and you’ve got up to six-hours of cooling capacity, wherever you are, the next day.
WHEN WILL CHILLERS BE AVAILABLE?
You don’t need bookkeeping services or a fancy financial advisor to tell you this is a great product and the perfect new business in which to invest. The Kickstarter funding campaign has already gathered $38K toward its modest $50K goal and it has done so in just 12 days. With 18 days left and over 76% of its target funding already raised, Chill.Systems looks like a slam-dunk cinch to meet its funding goal. From that point to actual manufacturing? Who knows, but the technology to mass-produce the various components of the Chill.Systems product line is pretty rudimentary. There are no exotic materials to secure a source for, nor programming glitches to work out. It’s all pretty much just fabrication, marketing and distribution from here on out.
WHERE DID THIS CHILL COME FROM?
The two guys responsible for this portable cooling breakthrough are Chase Mitchell and Brian Bloch. They met as Business School undergrads at the University of Southern California. After graduating, they both ended up in the Bay Area – Brian as a bean counter at Apple and Chase in sales at the Google. But their passion was weekend hiking and Northern California certainly offered copious opportunities for partaking in that, from the Coastal Redwoods to Yosemite Valley and on up into the High Sierras.
Two years ago, Brian and Chase attended a BYOB music festival in the Bay Area and noticed that the biggest hassle about the self supplied hydrates concept at a large, public venue like a music festival was keeping those hydrates chilled. After all, who wants to end a mondo awesome Gary Clark Jr. performance with warm beer!? They witnessed people dragging around and struggling with the usual, bulky, heavy coolers throughout the concert day. It was akin to being loaded down with packages during a walloping shopping spree that stop you from, actually, shopping. The coolers were getting in the way of the music and frolicking. So, that night Chill.Systems was born, with an emphasis, first, on portability, then cooling power, then length of effective operation.
Instead of trying to troll the crowded Silicon Valley venture capital quagmire, the Chill Guys decided to go with Kickstarter so they could connect with as many people with common wilderness hiking interests, and as broad of a base, as possible. It’s obviously working. This is an enthusiastic campaign that is exceeding goals every single day. And the free flow of ideas from the enthusiastic backers has lead to brainstorming sessions for supplementary products once manufacturing gets rolling.