NIKE ACG STARTED WITH RUNNING SHOES AT K2 BASE CAMP

Nike ACG started in 1989, when Nike launched All Conditions Gear as one line of outdoor footwear and apparel under Kirk Richardson, a lifelong mountaineer. The first shoes sold under the launch were the Son of Lava Dome and the Air Wildwood, beside Gore Tex shells and fleece. Nike's own history gives that date, and three earlier ones have a claim on the Nike ACG origin: the story begins at K2 in 1978, the shoes in 1981 and the letters in 1988.

1978. Two Climbers Reach K2 Base Camp in Running Shoes

Rick Ridgeway and John Roskelley walked to K2 base camp in 1978 wearing the Nike LDV, a nylon distance runner built on Bill Bowerman's waffle sole. Dianne Roberts photographed them there, and Nike now treats her picture as the first image of its outdoor business.

The LDV, short for Long Distance Vector, was a road shoe. Nike's account of the trip says expedition leader Jim Whittaker and Roberts, his wife and a photojournalist, cold called brands for support, and sponsors got their products photographed on the mountain in return. The shoes did not survive the approach in good shape. Nike says the two climbers mailed the worn pairs back with a short list of requests, sturdier soles and tougher uppers among them.

They were not the first Nike road shoes to be pushed up a mountain. On July 30, 1977, about a year before the K2 trip, Andy Gonzales won the first Western States Endurance Run in borrowed Nike Waffle Trainers, covering 100 miles of the Sierra Nevada in 22 hours 57 minutes as the only finisher under 24 hours in a field of 15. Nike had no trail shoe to hand him either.

Three Hiking Shoes Arrived Before Any ACG Logo

Nike's first outdoor shoes were the Lava Dome, the Approach and the Magma, sold as Nike Hiking with no ACG branding on them. Nike's history dates the trio to 1981, while other histories put the Approach and the Magma a year later, in 1982.

Nike describes the Lava Dome as one of its first lightweight hiking shoes. The Approach is widely cited as the first Nike shoe with a Gore Tex lining. By Nike's telling, Ridgeway and Roskelley's worn LDVs are the reason the three exist: the design team worked from the K2 photographs and the climbers' advice.

The Lava name never left. Nike unveiled a 700 fill down jacket called the Lava Loft in Shanghai on November 6, 2025, and on October 1, 2026 it introduced the 1,000 fill Lava Flow Ultralight at 248 grams in a men's medium. Forty five years after the Lava Dome, the outdoor line still reaches for that word when it wants a product to sound like the mountains.

"All Conditions Gear" Was a Running Phrase

The name All Conditions Gear came from Nike Running, which used it for a small line of year round performance apparel before the outdoor group existed as a brand. Nike's history says a small internal team began formalizing the outdoor business in 1987 and borrowed the phrase because the philosophy matched.

The letters reached a shoe before the launch did. Several histories date the first use to 1988 and the Air Pegasus ACG, an all terrain version of Nike's Pegasus runner. That in house birth also settles the question of who owns Nike ACG: the name was never bought or licensed from anyone, and the line has sat inside Nike since day one.

Kirk Richardson Put Shoes and Shells Under One Label

ACG became official in 1989 as a fully integrated line of footwear and apparel for people who ran, hiked, climbed and explored outdoors, in the words of Nike's history. Richardson, the mountaineer who ran the category, led it.

Most accounts name two launch shoes: the Son of Lava Dome, a low cut successor to the original Lava Dome, and the Air Wildwood. One history adds the Lava High. The apparel ran to Gore Tex and fleece outerwear, and early pieces took their names from mountains and expeditions. The Huascarán jacket was named for the peak in Peru, and Nike lists the design's details as underarm gussets, double storm flaps, cargo pockets and a zip in liner.

The sources disagree at the edges. Proper Magazine dates the Son of Lava Dome to 1988, and MR PORTER says the first ACG shoe arrived in 1988 with the formal announcement a year later. All of them keep 1989 as the official launch.

Moab Gave the 1991 Air Mowabb Its Name

The Air Mowabb arrived in 1991, designed by Tinker Hatfield and named for Moab, Utah, where Hatfield had made repeated trips. It crossed the Wildwood with the Air Huarache, taking a neoprene sock collar that kept sand out and a heel strap for support.

Its speckled midsole is reported as a first for any Nike shoe. Sneaker Freaker's history says the pattern came from rainbow trout Hatfield saw near the Colorado River, and that the first samples were made by flicking paint on by hand.

Thirty five years on, ACG went back to that town. In early October 2026 it took a crew of 35 to Moab for 48 hours, logging surface readings from 107F to 37F to test the Lava Flow Ultralight.

Every Start Date Is Still in the 2026 Catalog

Nike reissued the K2 shoe as the ACG LDV in April 2026, two months after it reintroduced ACG as a dedicated outdoor performance brand in February. The 1978 photograph, the 1981 Lava name and the 1991 desert all came back as product or campaign inside one year.

The spending is new even where the names are old. ACG's Racing Department sent five athletes to the Western States 100 in June, on the course Gonzales won in 1977. ACG backed a $150,000 prize purse at the Broken Arrow Skyrace, and in October it moved into camp furniture with a Helinox chair, table and sack that total 922 grams. A line that began with two climbers mailing worn out running shoes back to Nike now ships a 534 gram chair.