Room for the whole trip.

Sherpak comes from Seattle Sports, a Pacific Northwest gear maker that opened in 1983 welding waterproof bags for paddlers. In a place where it rains most of the year, a bag either keeps water out or it doesn’t, and the welded seam became the company’s signature.

The roof was the obvious next place to put it. Hard cargo boxes were expensive, heavy, and spent the off-season taking up half a garage. A soft carrier built like a dry bag could ride out a storm on the freeway, then fold flat into the trunk. In 1994 the company filed the name for it: Sherpak.

“One of the easiest car-top carriers I have ever used.”Michael Hodgson, The Spokesman-Review, after a summer with the Sherpak Gear Stow

Reviewers kept coming back to the same point. When GearJunkie tested the Sherpak Elite, it called out the thick vinyl, the radio-frequency-welded seams, and a price that was hundreds of dollars below a hard box.

A Sherpak carrier is heavy-duty, UV-resistant vinyl with welded seams, a deeply recessed zipper, and a strap system that works with crossbars or a bare roof. There’s no frame to store and nothing to bolt on. When you get home it rolls up and goes on a shelf.

The rest of the range grew out of the same trip. People who carried gear on the roof also carried boats, so we added complete canoe and kayak kits, the Boat Roller for loading a kayak alone, and the Hoist for getting it up to the garage ceiling at the end of the season. Rack pads, hood loops and replacement blocks keep it all quiet and tied down.

“When we arrived in Dallas, the contents (including towels used for padding) were bone-dry.”Spiehler, verified buyer, on a 2,750-mile move from Georgia to California

Our favorite thing about Sherpak reviews is that they read like trip logs. Texas to Vermont, 1,800 miles. San Diego to Seattle on the bare roof of an older Honda CR-V. A daughter’s move from Georgia to California, through a rainstorm that covered three states. Two kids’ bikes packed inside, front wheels off, because the car didn’t have a hitch.

Not every review is perfect, and we leave them all up. When people tell us the straps flap at speed, or that a suction cup needs a flat window, that’s useful to the next person and to us.

Today Sherpak is run out of Portland, Oregon, and every order ships from here. The carriers were designed in Seattle, and they’re looked after now from Portland, with the Columbia Gorge, the coast and the Cascades on our doorstep.

The idea hasn’t changed in more than thirty years and we don’t think it needs to. Most adventures still start with a loaded car and a long drive. Sherpak’s job is to make the loading easy and the drive uneventful, so the trip can be about where you’re going.