Our Story

Our Founder and the Adayak Goal 

Adayak was founded in April 2010, from a vision to provide the best organic t-shirts for people who love spending time in the outdoors, as well as donate back to environmental and wildlife conservation efforts. By supporting those who fight to protect the land and water we recreate on, we ensure that there will always be a place to climb, kayak, hike and camp for future generations. With our products, you will have something fashionable and simultaneously environmentally friendly. 

Our founder, David, is an avid kayaker, hiker, and snowboarder. “You know how Brendan Leonard is Semi-Rad? Well, I’m probably Quarter-Rad,” David said. “I won’t do a 50 foot drop in my kayak or ride down a double black diamond on my snowboard, but I’ll go out there and rip to the best of ability. And I’m going to have a lot of fun doing it.”

Conservation

To realize its mission, Adayak has donated to several organizations including The Access Fund, Conservation Northwest, Tree Fight, Appalachian Trail Conservancy and many others. With each purchase you make, one dollar goes directly to conservation efforts.

In 2013, Adayak launched a new program – Buy A Tee, Plant A Tree. It’s quite simple: for every t-shirt you purchase on our site, we will plant a tree in The Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Through the Nature Conservancy’s Plant A Billion Trees initiative we will help restore 1 million acres of forest that are on the brink of total loss. With new forestation, the ecosystem of Brazil will flourish once again, while simultaneously reducing our carbon footprint by 4 million tons every single year. Buy A Tee, Plant A Tree is a big part of what we’re about at Adayak.

T-Shirts and More

When Adayak launched we had only 9 products in store. Today we are at over 150 and adding new items monthly. This is thanks in large part to the great partnerships we’ve formed over the years, including The Dirtbag Diaries and Semi-Rad. Through our partnerships we have been able to increase our range of products and offer up new designs for consumers. We are now selling apparel for men and women from seven brands in seven departments.

At Adayak our staple product is still the 100% organic cotton t-shirt, but we’ve also grown our assortment to include a variety of products including long-sleeve cotton shirts, 100% polyester moisture wicking shirts, and 50/50 recycled polyester hoodies. Offering organic materials to the conscientious consumer is very important to us, yet providing synthetic materials for those long days on the trail is important as well!

Why Adayak?

Adayak is more than an organic clothing line. Adayak is the adrenaline you feel after crushing a Class V rapid on the Snake River. Adayak is the sense of accomplishment after making your 15th pitch at Royal Arches in Yosemite. Adayak is saying goodbye to a cubicle and hello to four months of freedom on an Appalachian thru-hike. In short, Adayak is a lifestyle. It’s what we all live for, day in and day out.

The name “Adayak” (pronounced add-ah-yak) simply came about by combining two things we love – Adventure & Kayak. The combination formed “Adayak”, and it stuck.

Passion runs deep in any outdoor enthusiast. For the kayakers, hikers, climbers, bikers, and anglers… there is no alternative. At Adayak, we are taking the stories of your lifestyle and bringing them to fashionable, eco-friendly apparel.