From a cold night above the James River to a Pennsylvania workshop — two decades of keeping hammock campers warm.

It started with a problem every hammock camper knows: the cold. Lie in a hammock on a chilly night and the insulation beneath you crushes flat, and the cold air steals your warmth from below. Over the Christmas holidays of 2003, two retired U.S. Army officers — Jack Tier and Jack Myers, longtime friends better known as "the Jacks," or by their trail names, Peter Pan and Smee — sewed up the prototypes of a fix: an insulated quilt that hangs beneath the hammock instead of getting squashed under you. They tested it on a 27°F night on a windy bluff above the James River, a few hundred yards from Jamestown, Virginia, the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. It held. Between them the two Jacks carried a combined 50 years of active-duty service, and they'd been hiking together since 2002.

The next June, on June 4, 2004, they founded Jacks 'R' Better, LLC and brought that quilt to market as the Nest — the first commercially available hammock underquilt. Two decades later, JRB is still built on the same idea, still hand-sewn in the USA, and still run by people who hang.

The Jacks era (2004–2018)

What followed was a run of firsts. The Nest proved the underquilt, and the line grew fast to cover every season and style of sleeper. In 2008 JRB introduced the Bear Mountain Bridge Hammock — a true lay-flat, lay-straight hammock that sold out its first production run months ahead of forecast — followed by the Mt Washington, a 0°F-capable underquilt with the dual-differential, body-contoured baffle design that still defines JRB warmth.

The years that followed filled out the family. The Mt Washington 3 brought a 20°F three-season underquilt; the ground-optimized Sierra wearable quilts (Sniveller, High Sierra Sniveller, Stealth) let you wrap up like a serape at camp and sleep in the same quilt; and the featherweight Greylock torso underquilts sold out on debut. JRB shipped the first commercially available quilt liner, moved to bigger workshops as demand climbed, and landed in the pages of Backpacker and Outside.

In 2014, JRB — and the Nest — quietly turned ten.

Meet Don "DGrav" Gravatt

Don has been sleeping outside since before he could walk — his first campout came at two months old, in a tent with his parents. His childhood was spent on the road in everything from a pop-up camper to a Class C motorhome. He picked up backpacking after high school, set it down for college and a career, and got pulled back onto the trail by a new friend from work — ironically, a guy named Jack. That reunion with the woods meant a lot of miles in New Hampshire's White Mountains, especially the Presidential Range.

The turning point came in 2003. Don set out to backpack Maine's fabled 100 Mile Wilderness — and tapped out after just 14 miles, worn down by injuries and a 70-pound load (the 75-liter packs alone weighed 6.5 pounds empty). That trip lit a fire under him: cut the weight. He kept after it on weekend trips, a handful of AT sections, and a slot-canyon traverse out West — and in 2005 he started researching a radical way to shed pounds and finally sleep well outdoors: hammock camping. By 2006, he was all in.

In 2007 he met the Jacks at the very first MAHHA (Mid-Atlantic Hammock Hangers Association) hammock hang at Gathland, and in 2008 the three set out on their first section hike together — Shenandoah National Park to Harpers Ferry. That same year Don went to his first Trail Days in Damascus, and from 2011 on he worked the JRB booth there every spring — with one happy exception in 2012, when his son was born. The AT sections became a yearly ritual, and in 2010 Don went back to the 100 Mile Wilderness with the Jacks and finally finished what he'd started seven years earlier.

He signed on as JRB's lead field-tester in 2008, and he still tests the way customers actually use the gear: real trips, real weather, all four seasons. The proof is in the miles — for two years he slept under nothing but a 0°F Mt Washington 4 underquilt, through lows of −16°F and highs of 91°F and humid, and never once overheated.

One of the Jacks — Jack Tier, better known as "Peter Pan," a lifelong motorcyclist — earned the nickname Don still gives him: his "bad influence." Peter Pan got him into three things. First came Scotch, paired improbably with Goldfish crackers, as the two waited out the rain in the Manassas Gap Shelter on their first backpacking trip together. Then came motorcycles — "a motorcycle trip," he'd preach, "is just like backpacking, only with air conditioning and better porcelain." It stuck: Don got his license in 2012, and by 2015 the yearly hiking trips had become motorcycle trips. And then came the big one — small-business ownership.

Taking Point (2018)

Around 2014, Jack started saying it out loud: when the Jacks were done, Don would be the one to buy the company. It was easy to wave off at the time — Don had a good corporate career, the kind that paid well and gave him the work-life balance most people spend their lives chasing.

Then, in 2017, the call came. The Jacks were moving on at the end of the year, and there were only two ways it could go: Don could buy Jacks 'R' Better, or it would close for good. By then he'd had his fill of the corporate world — and he wasn't about to let the company that had remade his nights outdoors simply disappear. He said yes.

On March 1, 2018, Don "DGrav" — the hiking partner who'd shared their miles for over a decade — bought Jacks 'R' Better and became its new owner. Days later, on March 5, JRB reopened in its new home: Hulmeville, Pennsylvania. The owners and the zip code changed; the promise didn't — the same fast shipping and the same hand-sewn quality, made by people who actually sleep in the gear.

The next chapter (2018–today)

Taking the reins didn't mean standing still. Don has kept the line growing year after year. He launched the James River Bridge Hammock in 2018 — a fitting name, given where the very first Nest was tested — added the wide, side-sleeper-friendly Big Meadows quilts in 2019, and in 2021 rolled out the 1000-fill-power Ultralight quilts that cut every ounce that can be cut. In 2022 he designed a zip-on quilt built specifically for Dutchware's Chameleon hammock; from there came the Alpha Direct liners (2023), made-to-order Custom Quilts (2024), the Windproof Liner (2025), and the Wind Gap (2026). Same workshop, same hands-on approach — a new generation of gear.

A family on the trail

JRB has always been a family affair. Don's wife, Jess, logged plenty of those early backpacking miles herself and was at most of the MAHHA hangs — she was there the day Don met the Jacks, joined some of the section hikes, and ran shuttles to the trailheads. Marathons, triathlons, and motherhood cut into her trail time after their son was born, but the family never stopped adventuring: years of car camping and road trips, and in 2020 a van they took across the country for a couple of months — now a habit of several trips a year. These days Don's son is his sidekick on the trail, and he works the JRB booth every year at the Loudoun Appalachian Trail Festival.

Jacks R Better today

Every JRB quilt, underquilt, hammock, and tarp is still hand-sewn in the USA, in Pennsylvania, with RDS-certified down — from the crew that built the first commercially available hammock underquilt back in 2004. Don still leads the field testing, answers your emails, and shows up at the hangs and the events. Our quilts have logged countless thru-hikes of the AT, PCT, and CDT, and JRB has been at Trail Days in Damascus every year since 2004. Two decades on, the trail journal is still being written.

Every Jacks ’R’ Better order carries a one-year workmanship warranty and our satisfaction guarantee, and in-stock gear ships the same or next business day. Full details are on our FAQ, shipping, and contact pages.

Sleep Better. Adventure Better.