You spent how much on that?!?!

[John Frieh]

Buy the Newest, Lightest, Shiniest Gear Or You Could Die

 

I'm not going to name any names

[CascadeClimber]

Gear would cost 1/3 less than it does now if the industry stopped giving it away to the people who use it most.

[Water]

with the advent of pre-holed jeans and paying top dollar for a 'distressed' look, my friends and I have often joked we would start a line of outdoor climbing gear and outer-wear to hit this demographic. Now you can have the look of a dirt-bag hardman climber without having to do the work:

 

dinged, bent, burred, and worn biners

dirty rope with frays and core shots

busted harnesses fixed with overhang knots

rain jacket with dirt in arms, fire singes, half-assed looking repair to a few strategically placed rips

boots with no tread, or laces

pants with only threads on the butt from glissading

crampons with bent spikes/broken spikes

pre-hit helmet (looks like you made it through 24hrs of huddling under steel cliffs during a heat wave)

ice ax with huge dings and slight cracks in shaft

...

have not yet moved into the sleeping bags or tent/stove hard goods area, but we felt the above could really sell a certain image to a certain crowd, if $150 jeans with holes ripped in them is our baseline

 

[xhen]

with the advent of pre-holed jeans and paying top dollar for a 'distressed' look, my friends and I have often joked we would start a line of outdoor climbing gear and outer-wear to hit this demographic. Now you can have the look of a dirt-bag hardman climber without having to do the work:

 

I sometimes judge people with bright, shiny gear...

[chubler]

+1 for cc.com Yard Sale.

 

[Dane]

Pretty funny stuff John. Loved this:

 

"A little over a year ago, I was rolling my bicycle into the Pacific Ocean after 3,000 miles of riding, from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida. One of the big questions of the ride for me, besides “Do I have a saddle sore?” was “Is my bike going to make it?” I had bought my Raleigh Team USA from some guy in Broomfield for $100 after seeing it in a Craigslist ad. The bike was 25 years old when we started our ride."

 

Or as Twight wrote, "surrounded by 400# of the lightest gear known to man".

 

In the mid 80s I climbed Furher Finger in two long days and skied down. Best gear available back then. Koflachs on my feet and 207 Rossi and my ski boots on my back. A couple of weeks we ago I did the same trip in a casual 7 hrs to the summit while climbing in comfort in my ski boots and just 6# of skis and bindings on my back.

 

Those Rossi and boots weighed in at around 25# total, plus another 8# for the Plastics Koflachs and steel crampons. So 33#.

 

Dynafit gear was 12# total and used about 25% of the time and effort involved originally.

 

25 year old steel Raleigh weighs in at around +30# @ $100 or less. A Cervello R3 around 15# and $4000 or more. Effort involved in pedalling one up hill? 1/2 or less. I'll ignore the fact the writer didn't even know what ocean he was in. "I was rolling my bicycle into the Pacific Ocean after 3,000 miles of riding, from San Diego to St. Augustine, Florida"

 

Knowledge is power. Use it, your cash and time wisely.

 

Of course you can always walk instead of fly.......

 

"Was the adventure way more memorable than the gear I bought for it? Absolutely."

 

But no way in hell I would have carried 207s and boots back up Rainier either..

 

 

[iceaxe23]

with the advent of pre-holed jeans and paying top dollar for a 'distressed' look, my friends and I have often joked we would start a line of outdoor climbing gear and outer-wear to hit this demographic. Now you can have the look of a dirt-bag hardman climber without having to do the work:

 

I sometimes judge people with bright, shiny gear...

 

Don't judge bro

 

I get some new gear for free from work sometimes but not often. Though my favorite climbing jacket is a decade old moonstone windshirt. My ice tools are BD "curved" black prophets that are also about a decade old. My old silver glitter Kong carbon fiber helmet has bubbles in it and is chipping (maybe will replace it).

 

I do tend to get a boot fetish (not to the extent of Dane) as the Marine Corps trashed my feet and I like to pamper them now with different boots.

 

I tend to spend my money on Gas now

 

 

[Julian]

“Don’t spend money on gear. Spend it on plane tickets.”

 

That's all well and good if you are some dirtbag adventurer, or a semi-professional outdoor type. If, like many of us, you are a weekend warrior with a steady professional job, then it may just not be feasible to be routinely jumping on planes and going off on explorations and climbing trips. But with lots of disposable income, a car (which is for commuting to work so its not part of the "climbing budget"), and the weekends or maybe a few weeks around Christmas to get your trips in, why not spend some of your cash on nice gear? Anyone who claims that having good gear doesn't make the experience at least slightly more pleasant (all other things being equal) is someone who doesn't have much of it.

[zeroforhire]

Good read. Thanks for the link.

 

 

[crackers]

I'm not going to name any names

 

It's that time of year huh?

 

It seems that every year sometime after most folks are back from AK or about to graduate, we get a thread that ultimately revolves around economic choices. Forgive me if I cause some thread drift, or ignore it, I'm just bored of the surface of the topic.

 

We make economic choices every day. I have a small business, somebody else works at Intel, somebody else is a substitute teacher or a firefighter or maybe somebody is a house husband or wife. Those of us who are lifers climb despite and by and in the context of our other economic choices.

 

About two years ago, gas was expensive, I wasn't making a dime and I could not really afford to go to Smith and I wanted to clip bolts at Smith. I bought an espresso machine and started making my first coffee or two at home. The machine was about $150 or something, which I thought was expensive. The coffee beans I bought at the local joint was pricey too.

 

I generally spent $5 a day at coffee shops before spending $150 to get started doing it at home. I made the economic choice that morning conversation with a barista wasn't as valuable as being able to drive to go climbing. And now, two years later, I've saved a ton. I go to the coffee shop some weekends to get somebody else to make me some fancy latte or something, but the cost of my coffee addiction is down 99%.

 

So? My point?

 

I spent a $150. That's a lot more than $5. But I saved money over time and I'm still saving money. And more importantly, I'm smug and happy.

 

Maybe buying gear that works for us, whether it's used once, once a month or once a year, has an economic value that is worth more than the dollars we pay for the thing. I've got a tee shirt that cost $650 -- oh, ok, it was from a seminar, but come on, the tee was still $650. And it was worth it.

 

Some gear allows you to do stuff. Some allows you to do stuff more easily. Other stuff, well, sometimes maybe you just want to look sexy and feel smug. Everybody makes economic choices. To me, it's more important to think about your choices as choices than to echo tired platitudes about 'the adventure' or 'buy a plane ticket rather than gear' or 'i'm kewl cause i'm so cheap that i use crapped out gear from some forgotten glory days'...

 

Here's to hoping making our choices make us all proud of ourselves with the benefit of hindsight!

 

/off to walk the dog in the rain...wtf is up with summer anyway?

[G-spotter]

I guess you are right. I better buy a $1200 handmade nwd pack then. It will totally save weight on my next ascent of Banana Peel.

[wfinley]

I love blog posts that tell me not to buy the latest greatest gear while flashing banner ads touting the latest greatest gear.

 

[crackers]

I guess you are right. I better buy a $1200 handmadecraft manufactured nwd pack then. It will totally save weight on my next upside down ascent of Banana Peelthe deadly Cobra Fang.

 

I've heard that those packs cause your hockey team to win and your Cup Beard to look sexy too!

[sdizzle25]

with the advent of pre-holed jeans and paying top dollar for a 'distressed' look, my friends and I have often joked we would start a line of outdoor climbing gear and outer-wear to hit this demographic. Now you can have the look of a dirt-bag hardman climber without having to do the work:

 

I sometimes judge people with bright, shiny gear...

 

hahaha. I have been climbing less than 2 years and just got done with a brief stint with REI in which I pro-dealed a rock and ice rack i am using a couple times a week. Sorry you can still see the color of my cam lobes and I am still on the first pair of picks for my tools?

my ropes legit though. I bought it from a crackhead who spilled gasoline all over it, so i definately dont look like a NOOB

judge away brother....ill be climbing

[billcoe]

I'm not going to name any names

 

LOL, I use to have nothing - saved it all for the kids. Then one day I woke up and thought "Fuck them", let them go work for it too:-) Fortunately I said it nicely because guess who's going to be hooking me up with the pro deals now:-)

 

HMMMMMM, Shiney gear, HMMMM<

 

It's a good point in the article.

[G-spotter]

I guess you are right. I better buy a $1200 handmadecraft manufactured nwd pack then. It will totally save weight on my next upside down ascent of Banana Peelthe deadly Cobra Fang.

 

I've heard that those packs cause your hockey team to win and your Cup Beard to look sexy too!

 

Shit, it's my fault they lost then

[denalidave]

Blue light special on pup tents at MalWart... Paging JohnDavidJr

[johndavidjr]

Is simply an extraordinarily excellent 22-ounce, 1-2 person tent for $24.86, offering quite superfluous "reverse snob appeal" as side benefit.

 

Competitive alternatives (mainly from comparable, Asian contract manufacturers) are available starting at far, far higher prices.

 

About ten years ago, I switched almost exclusively to "tents" without floors & have owned or continue to own, four of these, with total retail "value" of perhaps $800.

 

Generally they work but are questionable vs. mosquitos and do nothing vs. legions ants, spiders & hell-knows-what, on "forest floor" or deep grass in many regions of the world, including NE USA.

 

Notion of throwing a fairly delicate & expensive item of equipment (the typical tent floor) into gravel & dirt, is now, to me, unacceptable. Carrying a "Floor Protector" and paying for this, to my mind, defeats basic purpose of unit and has NEVER been acceptable to me.

 

I will continue to use various excellent floorless "Tents" for snow and off-season, but at this moment, for mild summer weather I've experienced over many years slightly above and mainly below treeline at many locations, this seems a very fine ultralight and minimalist shelter.

 

When or IF floor wears out I'll toss it like plastic shopping bag.....F**k em.