There's a version of Trek Light's history you can read in our old blog posts and emails.
And then there's a version that a handful of people carry around on their actual skin.
This is about the second kind.
The dare I never expected anyone to take
Meet Chad Patzer. Mr. #1.
Back in the early 2010s we ran a Hammock Day giveaway, and at the last minute I added an "instant win" option, mostly as a joke: get a Trek Light themed tattoo somewhere on your body and you win on the spot.
I never expected in a million years that anyone would step up.
Then a bearded champion named Chad Patzer did exactly that, and the first Trek Light tattoo entered the world.
A year later, we ran it again. Another fan stepped forward.
Then came 2014, when the Tattoo Challenge went from "one brave soul a year" to a full-on movement.
As I announced in the original post, four more fans, two men and two women, left their mark on Trek Light history that year: Casey Shoemaker, Chad Allison, Ashleigh Nicolle, and Jefferey Robinson.
Six tattooed Trek Light heroes, back when we were a scrappy little hammock company running on word of mouth.
About that logo
Here's the part I love most, all these years later: every one of those tattoos is the original Trek Light logo. First-era branding, permanently archived on human beings.
And I'll say this proudly, not sheepishly. When I started Trek Light in 2003, I didn't hire a branding agency. As I told it in the original post, I wrote names down on paper and repeated them over and over until they stopped making sense and one rose to the surface.
The Colorado Hammock Company, Haber's Hammocks, and Happy Hammock Co. all nearly made the cut, which means somewhere in an alternate universe, Chad has "Haber's Hammocks" tattooed on his body.
We all dodged something there.
Logos evolve. Companies grow up. But the first logo is the one people fell in love with when this was just a small idea about showing people that life is better in a hammock.
Those tattoos aren't outdated. They're founding documents.
Why people ink a hammock company on their body
I've thought about this a lot, because it's objectively a strange thing to do, and I mean that with all the love in the world.
The stories I heard in those years explain it better than I can. As told in the original post: couples who first met while using their hammock. Couples who got engaged in one. A couple who lost their home to a fire and made sure their Trek Light hammock was the first thing they replaced when they rebuilt.
Nobody tattoos a product on themselves. People tattoo the afternoons, the trips, the person in the hammock next to them. The logo just happens to be the shorthand.
That's also why we've kept the same promise running underneath all of it, including planting a tree with every sale.
The people willing to put us in permanent ink deserve a company that acts like it plans to be around as long as the tattoo is.
The commitment-friendly option
Not ready for needles? Fair. We also make stickers, which are basically tattoos for people with boundaries. Slap one on a water bottle and you're an honorary member of the club, no aftercare required.
The archive is still open
Here's the thing about calling this a living archive: it only lives if it keeps growing.
So this is an open invitation. If you've got Trek Light ink, old logo or new, faded or fresh, I'd love to see it.
If you're one of the original six, I really want to see how it's held up, and I'd love to hear where life has taken you since. And if reading this plants a tiny reckless seed in your brain, I'm not telling you what to do with your body. I'm just saying the archive has room.
Send a photo and the story behind it through our contact page or email it to hey@treklightgear.com. With your permission, we'll add it to this post so the archive keeps growing.
To the six who started it, and to everyone who's ever loved this brand hard enough to even consider it: thank you. You made a small idea permanent, beyond my wildest imagination.
