About Long Haul Folding Kayaks

Where Craftsmanship Meets Performance 

Mark Eckhart -- Master Boat Builder, Founder, and Owner

Tucked away in Western Colorado Mark Eckhart has been manufacturing the finest folding kayaks in the world for 28 years. He and a small team of craftspeople hand build each boat for a niche but devoted market of paddlers who need a packable boat of high enough quality for serious expeditions. 

The lineage of folding kayaks is unlike any other piece of outdoor equipment. The Inuit people hunted from wooden framed kayaks made of driftwood and animal skin in the Arctic thousands of years ago. The modern folding kayak emerged in Germany in the early 1900s with a strikingly similar design to that of the ancient Inuit boats. Folding kayaks have since become the vessel of choice for expedition paddlers, specialized military groups, and world travelers who need a high-quality packable boat. 

Mark Eckhart learned the craft after becoming an adventure kayaker himself and repairing Klepper boats as a hobby. He discovered the common failings of the products on the market and then set out to produce a more reliable boat of his own. The result has been a kayak built to the highest standard.  

Long Haul kayak frames are composed of the finest grade of ash and birch, laminated, sealed with marine-grade varnish, and joined with stainless steel fittings. The boat hulls are hand-sewn from heavy-duty marine rubber and acrylic-coated deck fabric. Air sponsons run along each side of the boat for buoyancy and shape. Long Haul kayaks are customizable and built to outlast the life of the paddlers that buy them — rare qualities in an outdoor market flooded with foreign-made, disposable products that are not easily repaired. 

Long Haul Folding Kayaks has built a strong reputation in a challenging market, earning the trust of hundreds of loyal customers.