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From SpaceX to Backpacks, Kyle Siegel Is an Innovator

Originally posted on Powder | By David Reddick | Last updated Nov 8, 2024 2:46 PM ET

The following article first appeared in POWDER's Fall 2024 print issue, 'Not Another Gear Guide'. Get a copy shipped directly to your home, or look for it on a newsstand near you.

Hyperspace Technology

By: Erme Catino

“Ground control to Major Tom, your circuit’s dead there’s something wrong…” To many people outside of the ski culture, pulling the plug on a competitive internship and subsequent engineering job at SpaceX would seem rather drastic, especially for a young graduate starting his career. For Kyle Siegel, founder of recently launched Raide Equipment, the freedom of ski bumming was too strong. His step off the corporate conveyor belt laid the foundation for launching a brand that, in one year, has challenged producers of innovative gear for human-powered adventures.

Originally from Chicago, Siegel grew up skiing only a handful of days a year. That all changed when he attended Harvey Mudd College in Southern California, and experienced a taste for ski culture through trips to Mammoth. Since then, the dual passions of being an engineer and skier have had him bouncing between the two professions for years, and still today after launching Raide in October 2023.

“SpaceX was really awesome in letting me take time off,” says Siegel, who took a year to ski bum in Vail between his internship and full-time job. “After a year I wanted to go back to ski bumming.” Siegel found his way from mechanical engineering vibration analytics to ski instructing. He dove headfirst into achieving his level three certification while teaching at Vail, before landing jobs at Snapchat and then The North Face. “It was a pretty awesome opportunity working in The North Face’s Peak Category as they were developing Futurelight,” he says. “Though I skied the least while I was there, it taught me enough to be dangerous in starting Raide.”

Siegel has since relocated to Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. He still ski instructs at Aspen, but spends the majority of his days in the backcountry, touring around Marble, Colorado and during annual trips to Utah and Jackson Hole. He also tries to take one international trip a year to ski.

Siegel’s love for skiing and engineering intersect in the formation of Raide. His success is also quite remarkable, having introduced and quickly sold out of his 40L backcountry skiing packs. Rather than becoming handcuffed by thinking in the confines of a price point and category, the way many larger brands attack product design, Siegel utilized an approach of problem-solving for the core user.

Over the past couple years there has been an increasing interest in home-grown brands hand-sewing Dyneema fabric backpacks, such as Apocalypse, Illumination Equipment, and Horizon Designs. Siegel, however, quickly realized that to create the company he wanted there was no chance he was going to make the bags himself. “I was always interested in starting my own company,” says Seigel. “I wanted to make a pack for myself and had a clear vision with what I wanted it to look like.”

With that in mind he reached out to one of the three major backpack factories in Asia— where many mainstream brands produce their packs. Noting they had a minimum 2,000-unit order, he pressed go. “I paid over $100,000 and I hadn't shown anyone the design yet,” he says. “I got to completely dive into the first iteration and was so convinced on the vision that I wanted to bet on it… I took a chance, but I wanted to create a real company and not a hobbyist brand.”

In their second year in existence, Siegel is adding a 30L version to complement the 40L. Additionally, both are available with SBX-Avalanche Survival Systems. They’ll also offer the first backpack that allows you to retrieve your probe and shovel without taking your pack off. “The common thread through everything in Raide is efficient human powered adventures and innovative gear,” explains Siegel. “Everything we do has to be the best on the market.” With that in mind, he’ll also be launching a unique mountain running belt and ski pant–ambitious, given he’s only had two angel investors and is a one-man show who has yet to write himself a paycheck. With a small team made of himself and a handful of athletes, Siegel can quickly iterate on a design and bring products to market exponentially faster.

One thing Seigel has learned: Raide can no longer be a side hustle. He is likely going to have to quit his recent engineering job—in which he has been managing a team and working primarily at night. The same freedom he sought in leaving SpaceX for skiing is guiding him, growing not just for money and to appease investors, but rather to create gear to meet the demands of backcountry travel. “I’m very much trying to build the next Arc’teryx,” he says. “I have an aggressive product road map and we’re going to produce for the core market.”

POWDER's "Not Another Gear Guide" is still on sale. Get it here!

This article originally appeared in POWDER's Not Another Gear Guide. Keep reading for more information about POWDER's second print issue of the year, The 2025 Photo Annual.

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