Gone Gear-Hunting

It was a rainy Saturday that the local R.E.I. stores (an outdoor person's heaven on earth) held their garage sale for members only. For a one-time $15 fee, I signed up last week just for this, so that I could get some gear to send to my hiking buddies back home.

I ended up using that membership just for myself this time. I bought a Coleman backpacking stove that my friend Glen asked me to get, but that wasn't on sale. HOWEVER, I did get myself a nice little fleece jacket (in not-so-perfect condition) by The North Face for a bargain price!

Seeing that I wouldn't be buying anything from the garage sale besides that, I decided to shop around first in order to get the most for my money. Sure enough, I found a few items at a sporting goods chain called The Sports Authority: a couple of stoves and, I wonder why I hadn't thought of this before, some two-way radios. (Flashback to Pico de Loro last month where half the group got lost in the woods at night tired, out of water, dehydrated, and lights out of batteries. )

R.E.I. still has the best choices when it comes to reliable equipment especially for extreme weather conditions. They also have the most selections when it comes to lightweight cookware that I had planned on getting. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of large size pots and pans like we use to cook enough rice for 6 people at a time, and two of that going on simultaneously. (You kinda get used to how our guys gobble up rice with gusto after hours and hours of hiking uphill with a 25-pound backpack.)