Back in college, I had a friend who asked for some help moving heavier objects at his parents’ house, so I volunteered. It was a very spacious house, very nice, and I believe I made a comment about it and how well everything seemed to fit into place. My friend’s parents were a little sheepish and said, “Well, downstairs is full of all the outdoor gear, and there’s no space down there”. I’m not sure what 19 or 20 year old me was thinking, but amidst our conversations I was able to pick up on a slight exasperation over things. I mentioned some of the difficulties my parents had with money, and that I guess allowed them to relax a little and reveal the same thing was basically what they were going through, and the nice house was pretty easily explained as a result of inheritance money.
I don’t remember being rude about any of this, in fact I remember feeling very understanding, but it was a long time ago. But that always stuck with me very strongly. When they said “basement full of outdoor gear”, I think they were being literal. And I honestly suspect that this may have been part of their story. I really don’t have any judgements on that, but the lesson has always been clear in my memory.
Outdoor gear, or “adventure gear”, is expensive. It’s especially expensive if you have a family or try to do ALL OF THE THINGS.
Aside from fishing with my dad, my parents are not outdoor people, and I never grew up learning how to do outdoor things. This made getting started extremely difficult for me and something I’m still a little bitter over. If you want to start camping, you need a tent, sleeping bag, maybe a sleeping pad, a pillow, cooking utensils, a chair, the ability to start a fire, etc. When you don’t have a lot of money, these are expensive, and you really can’t afford to get something that doesn’t work right the first time.
Hiking requires some good boots, maybe hiking poles, the right backpack, the right clothes. Snowshoeing requires snowshoes, possibly gaiters to keep the snow out, the proper base layers, the proper hats and gloves, a waterproof shell, you name it. Oh, you want to go backpacking? Well, your sleeping bag needs to pack down pretty small, you need a larger pack, a cooking stove, you may need some navigation tools, and you will want extra layers, maybe even a water filter/purifier.
Oh, you want to do mountain biking, rock climbing, ice climbing? Better be prepared to fork over that dough!
These activities can be incredibly expensive. But the whole outdoor “community” is really great at goading you into more and more expensive items. Probably the worst thing for your health is bumming around at REI just looking for something new to buy. It’s not hard to drop a few hundred dollars there on a random day, so don’t do it!
My first sleeping bag was a cheap 40 degree mummy bag. I suspect it was around $60. I hated it, because mummy bags and I don’t get along. So I bought another 40 degree bag that was rectangular, and swapped the mummy bag to my dad. This new one was actually pretty nice. But some nights were cold, so I upgraded to a 20 degree bag for around $70 or $80. This bag sucked, or at least it did during the conditions I used it. I was always freezing. So much for 20 degrees. So then I was determined to buy a 0 degree bag, and I did so for around $120, opting for a nicer brand. This was pretty good, but it was also bulky, and I wanted to get into backpacking. So I started looking for a backpacking sleeping bag, but the cheapest ones were all 40 degree, 20 degree, or 15 degree, and I’m like, “Oh, HELL no, I’m not playing that game again!”, and just went straight for the $300-$400 0 degree backpacking sleeping bag, and it’s awesome. But it’s also a lot bigger because of the extra down content, so it doesn’t fit into the teensie “sleeping bag” compartments of many backpacks. Fuck!!!
Yes, welcome to “gear” hell.
The problem with gear hell is that “you pay for what you get” is so often true, but marginal improvements become exponentially expensive. Do you ever get perfect gear? No, you really don’t. You can get close, though. But you can buy stuff from a regular retail store for cheap and get started. But gear lust is difficult to resist. Pretty soon you’re imagining all the amazing adventures you could have if only you owned this one upgrade or that one new piece of equipment.
I had a gift card to REI and was looking for an extra pair of gaiters that friends could use with my extra pairs of snowshoes (different story there – those were all bought steeply discounted). The most expensive gaiters were “water proof” while the others were only “water resistant”. My brain freaked out a little, worried whether the water resistant ones would be good enough or whether I needed to drop $120 for the fully water proof ones. After my brain calmed down, I had to remind myself than none of my gaiters have ever been water proof. It’s not like you spend time in standing water or anything like that, you just need something to prevent snow from getting in your boots, and I don’t believe I’ve ever had a case of the gaiters not repelling snow properly. This is obvious in retrospect, and $120 seems a stupid amount to spend on gaiters! I bought the much cheaper ones for maybe around $40, but these manufacturers are not stupid. They know what goes through your head and how “features” can sway you from one item to the other, how to price things to a point, and how fear can even motivate you to spend more. They could have gotten me on that one, but this time I had experience on my side and knew that snowshoeing gear does not have to be that expensive.
But these are the decisions you have to make on pretty much everything! And that gets exhausting.
I tried to go the cheap route on a backpacking stove burner, opting for the $40 utensil kit and a $15 burner. It sucked. It took forever to get a boil going, though my first field test was in frigid conditions during snowshoeing. I finally tried out my Windburner this past January or February, and it had a rolling boil in minutes. Most impressive. I was trying to be true to saving money on things I wasn’t sure I would use very often, but the $55 was kind of wasted in the process. There is just no comparing to the $150 Windburner. But how could I know how much my first option sucked? Reviews only get you so far. What some multi-week thru-hiker thinks of a backpacking stove is going to be way different than what a one- or two-day out-and-back hiker will think of the exact same item. Not every reviewer makes it clear who they are.
You pay to get started, then you pay even more for nuance. Yet if you pay for the quality gear first but never use it, you end up with an American garage full of nice stuff you don’t want to get rid of (because it’s nice), but which you never use. It’s nearly impossible to win this game.
This, my friends, is the tyranny of outdoor gear. This is not a game you can win. It is a process, and it’s an expensive process. And that could be why most of the people you see on the trails are white middle-class folk, and an awful lot of yuppies. It is, in some ways, a function of how much money you can afford to throw out, as much as I hate to say this.
I’m exaggerating this because it’s fun, but I’m also griping a bit because there are so many pieces of equipment and so many trade-offs. The process is exhausting, and it’s just so damn hard to get everything right the first time. And I want adventure. Who doesn’t? But it’s always being sold at a price point. If you want to make sure you aren’t constantly throwing money out on this stuff, you have to be extra vigilant.
My only potential suggestion on this is to intentionally limit how many types of adventure you’re hoping for. Oh, I know, everybody’s gotta fill that Instagram feed with beautiful pictures of how adventurous you are, doing everything under the sun. But the fastest way to lose money is to take on a dozen hobbies you never have the time for, especially if those hobbies are all outdoor activities that have been designed to keep you spending money as an excuse for not simply getting out there and doing something with your Saturday. This is why I drew the line at mountain biking, I was like nope, probably not going to happen enough to justify.
Some gear can serve dual purpose in other activities, which is why I’m a big fan of buying hiking boots you like. It’s good for hiking, snowshoeing, backpacking, camping, and even metal detecting. And some of my other hiking gear doubles for snowshoeing, and backpacking, which I’m still hoping to get into soon.
You will probably buy some stuff you don’t end up using very much, and some you won’t use at all. We’ve all done it. It’s okay. Just remember that if you do it too much, you’ll end up bankrupt with a basement full of adventure junk in a house you were only able to buy because your parents died. Whoa, whoa, I’M JUST KIDDING! But these things adds up over half a lifetime. You really do need to be vigilant, and that may look different for everybody.