Buying gear is becoming a bit of a
challenge, but I’m sure I’m making it that way.
Yesterday I bought a pair of zip-off hiking pants, but I have spent days
trying to find the right pair. The
process I use while buying anything I need for my hike is a long and complicated
one that makes my head spin, but I still enjoy it.
I start off with an idea of what I
want. For the pants, I had a cheap pair
that I liked hiking in until they disintegrated, and I knew that zip-off pants
are pretty common on the PCT. Pants are
something I have trouble getting the right fit so I wanted to try them on
first. So I went to the store. First was Gander Mountain
on the way home from the airport. They
had a few options, some North Face ones, but I was with family and it wasn’t
the right time to do shopping. A few
days later I went to Sports Authority, which is probably a great store if
you’re buying a yoga outfit, or if you want to look cute, but they didn’t have
any women’s zip-off pants. That
shouldn’t have surprised me because I already knew they didn’t carry any women’s
long sleeve button down hiking shirts.
In this part of Florida there seems to be a limited
selection of outdoor/sport stores. That
left the internet. I went to Backcountry.com,
my typical starting point. I got a feel
of the choices there: the prices, the
weights, the reviews. Any pant that
seemed like a possibility I left the tab open on my browser. Then I went to Sierra Trading Post and the comparisons
started again. I looked for the right
color, fabric, size, pockets, inseam length, price, weight, shipping cost. And it’s frustrating when a piece of
information isn’t listed. Most of the
mittens I’ve looked at the weight isn’t listed.
I’ve weighed my oddball collection of tent stakes to find the six
lightest I have (and the difference is only a tenth of an ounce) so of course I
want to know how much a pair of mittens weighs.
Then I went to Campmor, then Zappos, then REI, then EMS,
then Amazon (and I usually do this all more than once).
Then I sorted through the potential
ones. I close the duplicates that are
cheaper at one store or another. I
compare shipping. At EMS
if I buy 45 dollars of stuff shipping is free, but I didn’t like their pants as
much as I liked other ones, but I liked their sunhat the best and if I ordered
both I’d have the 45 dollar minimum. The
REI pants were a little more expensive but I could switch my EMS
order to REI and save with the yearly dividends, but REI didn’t have the gloves
or sunhat that I want, but the pants were okay.
Sierra Trading Post was the cheapest for a lot of what I’ve been buying,
but not this time. Zappos was a strike
out. Amazon had a pair that met all my
expectations for 20 dollars less than anything else I was seriously
considering. And only one pair in my
size left in stock. And there was free
shipping if I spent 48 dollars, except I didn’t realize until after picking out
a cheap watch that I had to spend the 48 dollars with the Amazon-seller that
was selling the pants. So I ditched the
watch out of my cart and just bought the pants and paid the eight dollars of
shipping, but still paid less than what I expected.
I do this with everything that I
buy for this hike. I’m counting on these
pants being the only paints that I wear for the five months I’m on the
trail. That’s a lot of pressure for a
pair of pants, glove liners, sunglasses, pack, or socks. All this gear really does make my head spin.
For all the care I've put into most
of my purchases my new GoLite pack was a total impulse buy. I had
browsed packs before, but not with the intent of buying one—I have a
perfectly good, slightly heavy pack that I was planning to use. Then GoLite deeply discounted some packs and
I bit. I’m not allowing myself to look
at the other ultra-light packs on the web.
I have plenty to do without second guessing purchases—like look at
hiking shoes.
Hi Castle, I can so relate to the gear buy head spin! Just found your blog on trailjournals and wanted to say hello and wish you well. I saw the golite jam on sale at golite.com for 69$ and I want one and now is not the time budget wise, damn!! Anyway, I am in Redding, Ca. And spend a lot of time on and around section N, will be even more this summer. Will keep in touch here and hopefully we will cross paths. Wheelchair John
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