You can now pre-order a pair of $5,000 worth of motorized hiking pants
If the idea of a challenging uphill hike has you longing for an e-bike-style booster, a Canadian apparel maker may soon be able to help. The outdoor products company Arc’teryx and the mobility company To skip have introduced MO/GO, a motorized pant that can save you approximately 14 kilos of your hiking gear.
The product, playfully named ‘Mountain Goat’, won’t hit the market until late 2025, but the company is already accepting $99 pre-orders bringing the price of the pants down from $5,000 retail to $4,500.
The MO/GO is a powered module weighing 2 pounds per leg, with a battery pack adding additional weight.Fast Company says the components plus the pants equal 7 pounds.) The module clicks into place the company’s Gamma pantsa $200 weatherproof climbing pant.
The system provides more leg power, provides a boost uphill and absorbs the impact of pedaling. Just like an e-bike, it can provide multiple levels of assistance.
Arc’teryx is offering in-store demos at her Climb Academy in Squamish, British Columbia, and $80 per day rentals in various cities. Currently, the pants are can be rented locations in Arizona, Denver, British Columbia, Northern and Southern California, and Utah. Soon to follow are Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Oregon, and Washington State.
Fast Company writer Mark Wilson took the device with me to try it out and said the experience felt more automatic than you might expect, but that the sounds of the motor and the small ‘micro delays’ ensure that the user doesn’t forget they’re wearing the MO/GO.
That said, the company still has more than a year to refine the technology. Wilson said he was able to climb up and down a flight of stairs three times without getting out of breath or experiencing an elevated heart rate.
According to the company, the exoskeleton-like pants could help hikers scale previously inaccessible peaks.
Mobility company Skip has spun off from Google X and is focusing on Movement clothingwhere technology that is also being developed for military applications and warehouse work is being applied to products for consumers and people with mobility issues. It is an area that is also attracting interest from other companies. Earlier this year, a Chinese company called DNSYS introduced an X1 running and hiking exoskeleton on Kickstarter starting at $600. Last year, a company called Hypershell had a similar product on Kickstarter.
The MO/GO is said to provide a 40% boost to leg muscles, while predicting and supporting a walker’s movements. A battery pack encircles the waist to power the two modules at the knees.
