Douglas Tompkins, a conservationist and co-founder of the outdoor activewear brand The North Face, and co-founder of Esprit, died Tuesday, December 8, after suffering from severe hypothermia while kayaking in southern Chile, authorities said, He was 72.

Tompkins was taken by helicopter to the hospital in Coyhaique but had stopped breathing when he arrived, doctors said.

The Aysen health service said the wealthy businessman and lifelong outdoorsman was boating with five other foreigners on Tuesday when their kayaks capsized in a lake in near freezing waters in the Patagonia region of southern Chile.

The North Face was founded in 1964 by Mr Tompkins and a partner in San Francisco, starting out as a "small ski and backpacking retail and mail order operation", according to the company.

A few years later, he helped his then wife Susie Tompkins Buell to start clothing brand Esprit.

Douglas Tompkins later sold his stake in Esprit and retired to Chile to use his fortune for environmental causes, founding the Foundation for Deep Ecology with activist Jerry Mander in 1990.

After retiring in 1989, Tompkins was active in conservation and environmentalism.

He owned hundreds of thousands of acres in Patagonia, a travel destination bursting with tough terrain and untamed rivers straddling southern Chile and Argentina.

Douglas bought up large tracts of land in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia to keep them pristine.

Douglas was born in Ohio on March 20, 1943, and grew up in Millbrook, N.Y., and began climbing in the Shawangunk Mountains in junior high school.

Tompkins, who never finished prep school, opened The North Face as a skiing and backpacking shop in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood in 1966.

It was bought by the global apparel company VF Corp. in 2000.

He met his wife while hitchhiking; even after they started a family and went into business together.

He and his wife at the time, Susie Tompkins Buell, also started a dress line that became the multibillion-dollar clothing company Esprit.

Douglas Tompkins was survived by his wife, two daughters, mother and brother.