CHOOSING COMMON-SENSE OUTDOORS GEAR

This is not a highly-technical guide on how to choose the "best" outdoor gear.  Rather, I share some "lessons learned" from my experiences purchasing high-quality and and fairly expensive outdoors gear--in hopes of saving you from repeating some of the same mistakes.  I want you to get the right gear, NOT the most expensive.  I've tried to make it interesting, and hope that we'll crack a few smiles from you.

The year was 1986 and we had recently moved to the beautiful Colorado front range. During school a few years earlier I had been a frequent backpacker and partaker of the Rocky Mountains, and I intended to enjoy them once more.  However, I definitely needed some new gear due to wear and tear on my old (and very cheap) equipment--in particular a backpack and sleeping bag.  Thus, the hunt was on for some really cool high-tech camping gear! 

I saw myself as a "serious outdoors guy" planning on doing some serious outdoors things. 

• Never mind those two toddlers we now had in tow...not to mention the anticipated arrival of child # 3. 
• Never mind the fact that I was working 65+ hours per week, and was involved in all sorts of volunteer community and church activities.
• I was an outdoors kind of guy with cash flow much improved over my school days, and my gear need to reflect my status.   (Again, never mind that my budget wasn't nearly as big as my appetite for cool gear!)

Naturally, I spent at least four weeks researching my prospective purchases...this was in those pre-historic days before an internet, and long before things like eBay or shopping websites had even been heard of.  Nevertheless, I was proud to march into numerous outdoor goods stores, and inform the sales clerks (in my most "serious outdoor gear guy" tone of voice) that I wanted to see their very best backpacks and sleeping bags. 

• Right then, the clerk would kind of hesitate...give me that long, up-and-down look, checking me out to see whether I was going to be a "guy spending serious money on serious outdoor gear." 
• They didn't really care whether I ever actually used the gear...they just didn't want my credit card to be rejected!
• Then, apparently having decided that I would in fact be a high-spending customer...they would start paying a lot of attention to me.  I was on a first-name, get-recognized-and-greeted-the-instant-I-walked-through-the-door basis with a couple of sales reps...for exactly as long as my money lasted.
• Since I don't gamble, I'll never know for sure...but I think it was just a little bit like being a high-roller in Vegas...very nice treatment, and they even laughed at my jokes--including the bad ones.

Finally, I bought a very, very nice Gregory backpack, complete with custom frame-fitting sessions at the mountaineering store.  I don't know if they still do that for Gregory packs, but I felt like a real mountain man getting that thing adjusted just right!  The thing was HUGE!!  I could (and later did) pack for two-week trips out of that monster.

My sleeping bag choice was even more serious.  I picked a top-of-the-line Marmot mummy bag with premium down and a very tight mummy design--to save every last ounce of weight; I was not one of those flatlander car campers, I was going to be doing serious backpacking on my own two legs!  Oh, yes, it also had to be rated for minus ten degrees, since I liked to do 4-season backpacking.

Here is where a few "Common-Sense" rules should have come into play, but didn't:

RULE #1:   Set a realistic budget.  Yes, it's just that simple.  Before you ever come near an outdoors store, pick up a catalog, or open up a website, KNOW WHAT YOU CAN AFFORD TO SPEND! 

• Know when to say when...shaving those last few ounces off of the weight scale costs a LOT of extra money. 
• Just because you're ready to step up from discount store outdoors gear does not mean that you have to go all the way up to custom, or even semi-custom gear!

RULE #2:  Don't buy the Ferrari when a BMW will more than do...or better yet, that very solid Toyota Camry (forgive the automotive allusions, but you get the idea). 

• Did I really need all of the high-tech, latest-thing technological advances offered by my new backpacking gear?  Or could I have gotten by with some top-end REI gear? 
• Did I really need a Gregory pack and a Marmot bag?  Top-of-the-line in their day and definitely high-quality stuff.  But, let's be honest...the names alone added probably 15% to the prices, and the fact they were sold only in higher-end stores bumped the price up another 10%. 
• The salespeople were very glad to have helped me that day. 

RULE #3:  You really can get too much of a good thing!  You know, that Gregory backpack turned out to be a great long-term purchase...it's still hanging in my garage, 21 years later--though it's now used by my sons, due to my recent health constraints.  Still, I had to pay for that pack in 1986...and pay for it I did, via credit card and high interest rates!  

On the other hand, I also still have a Coleman Peak 1 backpack I bought in 1983--for a heck of a lot less money!!!!  And, for reasons addressed further below, I've actually used the Coleman pack far more than I have the Gregory! 

That Marmot sleeping bag, however, turned out to be a different story.  I'm actually too embarassed to say how much I paid for that bag.

• I was the outdoors gear-equivalent of that dude buying his first-ever, honest-to-goodness overpowered sports car...despite that fact that the speed limits don't go up just because you have a faster car...and getting milked for every dime I had in my bank account. 

The real insult, however, is how little I've actually used that very expensive sleeping bag. 

• First, it turned out that Marmot was very conservative in rating their bag--it probably was more of a  minus 25 degree bag, in reality! 
• Then, I confirmed through extensive outdoors research that sleeping bags rated minus 10 degrees (and that sleep even warmer!) just plain aren't very comfortable for summer (and a whole lot of spring and fall) camping. 
• It took me a while to admit the truth:  I had still bought a 3-season bag!!!!  It was just that I had traded "winter" for "summer" as the off season for that particular sleeping bag.
• Second, the Marmot sleeping bag truly lived up to its billing as a "mummy"--it was form-fitting to the maximum!  It took (and still takes) about five minutes--I kid you not!--to get yourself properly encased and zipped into this thing. 
• You were almost strait-jacketed in that bag...hardly room to move a muscle, much less your legs or arms.
• Lord help you if you had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night!  Or if you just plain forget to do something before climbing in for the night.  Good luck if you got an itch or a cramp...you just couldn't do anything about it without unzipping the bag.  
• And remember how warm that bag was??  Well, more often than not, even on cold nights, I'd wake up after a couple of hours overheated and soaking in sweat!
• You can figure out what happened next--I started finding excuses not to use the bag.  I'd use one of our older bags or--even worse--I started using my wife's new sleeping bag. 
• She, of course, had bought a much more sensible (and much less expensive) 3-season bag, with a modified mummy shape (read: trimmed down some, but still room for you to move around in). 
• As a result,, her sleeping bag has been on hundreds more camping nights than she has...because everyone in the family keeps borrowing it.
• Then, I quit using the Marmot even for extreme cold weather camping--it was just too confining.  Instead, I would use my wife's 3-season bag...then  throw in an extra light-weight blanket and toss a couple of those small hand-warmer packs down by my feet...and sleep like a baby, warm and toasty but not sweaty.

I still own that Marmot mummy sleeping bag--I simply can't bear to part with it.  Mostly it just hangs out in the garage.  Once in a very great while one of the kids will borrow it for a winter campout..but not if they can borrow Mom's bag first.

None of the above is meant to impugn that Marmot sleeping bag I bought, or the company...it was, and still is, one sweet piece of outdoor gear. 

• Rather, the problem was that I bought a piece of near-expedition quality gear...when I was never really going to use it in the conditions it was designed to work best in. 
• And, I had neglected a fundamental truth:  it is a lot easier to adapt a lighter-weight sleeping bag to colder weather, than it is to use a lower-rated bag in much warmer temperatures. 
• Let me tell you, I could have bought a gazillion hand warmers for the difference in price between that super-tech sleeping bag and something more practical.
• Or, I could have added a sleeping bag liner...perhaps a nice silk one...and used it only when I needed it, on the very coldest weather trips.
• The reality was that I only went out camping or backpacking in relatively moderate temperatures...I just plain didn't need that bag.  Maybe my ego needed it, but I didn't!

Now, then, we come to Rule #4:  Be honest with yourself about what type of equipment you really need.  This one probably should have been Rule #1...but you probably weren't ready to listen to it yet. 

I totally set myself up for all of the above mistakes, because I had a vision of my outdoors future that just didn't match the reality of my life.  Buying top-quality, expensive outdoors gear can be seen as a great long-term investment...but the truth is, most gear will last for decades if you just take care of it decently.

Remember that Gregory backpack?  I still own and love that piece of gear, and it really did do some fantastic things for me over the years, including wilderness canoe trips, lengthy backpacking trips, etc. 

• However, I also found myself frequently choosing to use other backpacks than the Gregory, as the years passed. 
• Why?  Well, the reality is that most camping/backpacking trips I went on were only overnighters, or 2- or 3-day trips, at most. 
• For those trips, hauling that huge Gregory was kind of like using a monster-size dump truck to deliver 30 pounds of dirt--it was way, way overkill.

So, as you're considering what outdoors gear to buy, remember these rules, and apply them as you see fit.  Chances are they will save you a whole bunch of money, and probably quite a bit of frustration, as well.  As the old saying goes, "Choose wisely, my son." 

Good luck on all your outdoor adventures, and your eBay purchasing experiences!!

Copyright July 2008 by Rocky Mountain Home Solution/Used with Permission, all rights reserved.

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