Last night was the HCL Ruckoff in downtown Seattle at Drip City Coffee. There were Cadre present, tons of people getting ready for the event, and a mobile PX from GORUCK. It was awesome to see everyone and also see the changes that have happened to Drip City since the last time we were there.
When we were there the first time they had only been open for two weeks… since then they’ve added a six tap beer system and rotate all local beers. Needless to say it has gone from a great place to hangout to an amazing place to hangout.
Julie was there and brought lots of GORUCK gear with her to sell. There were plenty of shirts, bags (new and factory seconds), and some R&D products. What’s that folder looking thing on the table?
What you’re looking at here is the one (and only) GORUCK Patch Book ever made. It was hand sewn by Clay and sold to some lucky individual (not me) for $20 or $25. Someone at HQ made the call not to produce these and (personally) we think it should be made. I foresee a lot of emails being sent to GORUCK requesting this item.
As some of you are aware GORUCK has been working with Buffalo Trace so much to everyone’s joy there was Buffalo Trace present at the ruckoff.
There were plenty of shot glasses and the bourbon was the best price aka free. Hopefully the people doing the event are feeling good this morning because in less than seven hours they’ll be out there in the snow for the first HCL. We still can’t decide if it was a generous move or a sick trick to offer free shots at the ruckoff but either way people were happy.
One of my favorite parts about ruckoffs is that everyone is in such a good mood. There were tons of smiles going around and everyone was getting to know each other. The Cadre were out there chatting it up and it was great to see all of the familiar faces. As some of you know already I won’t be participating in GORUCK HCL 001 anymore (as of 2 weeks ago) so it was great to talk to BD and Bert since I won’t be seeing them this weekend.
There was a silent auction happening at the same time as the event and featured two laptop bags (one in Coyote and one in Multi-Cam). As many of you know the laptop bag is currently only available in black so this was a surprising (and exciting) sight to see.
As fun and carefree as the event was there was still that giant elephant in the room (this time in the form of a fire hose) to remind everyone that in less than 24 hours they’d be starting one of the most difficult events GORUCK has ever produced. Good luck to everyone taking part in HCL 001… we’ll be rooting for you.
HCL Ruckoff and Mobile PX
