Common Ground
Different Terrain. Different Style. Same Pursuit. In our new film, Common Ground, Montana-raised big game hunter Ryan D'Agostino trades western glassing knobs for the bogs and timber of Maine's North Woods on a moose hunt
If you’ve ever spent time around us, you know we’re shaped by big country. Long climbs before daylight. Thin air. Miles of glassing wind cut ridges where you can see weather building from a basin away. That landscape has defined how we move and how we build, gear meant to live in exposure, in wind, in elevation.
It’s also where Ryan D’Agostino is most at home.
Ryan has built his experience in the open country of the West, spending countless hours behind glass, studying terrain most people won’t step into. He understands vertical gain, long sightlines, and the patience required when you can see for miles.
So we gave Ryan a new challenge.
We sent him to the North Woods of Maine, somewhere he couldn’t see more than 40 yards.
The North Woods of Maine don’t offer ridgelines or open basins. They close in around you. Black spruce and fir knit together so tight that light barely touches the forest floor. The ground shifts from firm soil to bog. The air is heavy. In this country, you don’t hunt based on vision alone, you tune into sound, wind, and instinct.
Alongside Ryan were John Altman and Josh Leach, men who’ve spent their lives learning that landscape. They move through the North Woods of Maine with a rhythm built from repetition. They know when to call and when to stay silent. When to push forward and when to let the woods settle.
For Ryan, it meant adapting. Letting go of the comfort of elevation and sightlines. Trading glassing knobs for calling sequences. Trading wide open country for tight timber. Moving slow when instinct says move fast.
We’ve built our gear in the harshest places we know, high on the Brooks Range in Alaska, across the rugged deserts of New Mexico, and through the wind cut prairies of Montana. But the North Woods of Maine offered a different kind of proving ground. Not high and exposed, but dense and unforgiving. Wet mornings. Cold timber. Brush that grabs at fabric. Long pack outs through bog and shadow.
What stood out wasn’t just how Ryan adapted, it was how the gear did too.
From alpine peaks to black spruce swamps, the demands shift, but the expectation stays the same. Layers need to regulate when you’re climbing in thin air and when you’re standing still calling in cold timber. Packs need to carry weight whether it’s vertical shale or flat, waterlogged ground. Fabric needs to handle abrasive rock in the West and thick brush in Maine. Different pursuits. Different terrain. Same standard.
That’s what Common Ground revealed.
Harsh doesn’t have one look. It isn’t defined by elevation alone. Sometimes it’s wind and exposure. Sometimes it’s moisture and density. Sometimes it’s the mental pressure of hunting what you can’t see.
As the days unfolded in the North Woods of Maine, we watched Ryan lean into the unfamiliar. He listened more than he talked. He trusted the experience of the men beside him. He carried weight when it mattered. And through it all, the system he relied on in the West worked just as hard in the East.
Common Ground isn’t about West versus East.
It’s about shared resolve. About adaptation. About building gear and building character that performs across environments, pursuits, and terrain.
Different ground. Same pursuit.
No matter where you drop a pin on the map, from the highest peaks in Alaska to the deserts to the North Woods of Maine, the work remains the same. Endure it. Adjust to it. And stay steady when the landscape tests you in ways you didn’t expect.
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