Our Story

Ovis Mountain is a family-owned and operated company out of Palmer, Alaska, dedicated to producing the highest-quality, Made in America backpacks for backcountry hunters. Founded by Sam Jeffries, an experienced mechanical, aerospace, and field engineer with decades of solo backcountry hunting experience.

At Ovis Mountain, we pride ourselves on doing 100% of our own engineering and manufacturing in-house. By being capable of designing all aspects of our products we can ensure we never need to rely on outsourcing our products to engineering companies that have no real world field experience with the parts being designed. This allows us to offer superior products at competitive prices, designed from real-world hunting experience. Each pack system is made using USA-made MIL-SPEC components, ensuring exceptional durability and reliability.

Unlike other companies that only use Alaska as a namesake for marketing, we live the Alaskan lifestyle every day. This continuous, real-world testing is at the heart of our design process, ensuring that our gear is tested and proven in the toughest environments. Every product we make is a testament to our commitment to quality, innovation, and a deep understanding of what backcountry hunters need. 

Founder

Sam Jeffries – is a mechanical-aerospace and field engineer as well as an avid hunter. As an aerospace engineer, he worked in R&D on the cutting edge of the aerospace industry with organizations like NASA, FAA, DoD and some of the top research institutes in the world. Some of the projects he has led include state of the art aerial sensors for wildlife detection and population surveys, aerial UAV gas leak detection for the Alaska Pipeline, aerial oil spill response and mapping for Kodiak Island’s critical habitat, along with a multitude of other projects.

He spent years working at one of Alaska's premier rocket launch research facilities, specializing in winter launch pad prep in Alaska's bitter cold interior and recovering rockets after being launched to the most remote parts of Northern Alaska.

As a field engineer, he has traveled to nearly every corner of Alaska, designing and maintaining the states massive seismic monitoring network. He spent months in the field testing a marine wildlife early detection sensor he designed for Alaska's busy ocean waters. He worked with the remote western Alaskan villages helping to design and implement an emergency response thermal imaging system to locate lost individuals during Alaska's brutal winter snow storms.  

While Sam’s professional career has gained him a unique engineering skill set, his true lifelong obsession has always been wildlife and backcountry hunting. Originally from Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, Sam grew up with a passion for hunting and the wilderness from a very early age.

He began solo backpack hunting when he was a teenager and has been hunting the most remote country he can find ever since. Sam’s passion for hunting eventually led him to Alaska where he continues to solo backpack hunt for sheep and everything else Alaska has to offer.