How the Gear Room Happened

The gear room started as a corner of the garage. In 2019, I had completed my first backpacking trip in seven years — a three-day route in the Cascades that I had been planning for eleven months. The gear for that trip occupied one tote and a daypack. When I returned, I organized it in the corner of the garage and began thinking about the next trip.

I began thinking about the next trip in October 2019. I have not been on a backpacking trip since that October 2019 return. The next trip has been scheduled, postponed, rescheduled, and re-postponed several times. The gear has continued to accumulate.

How Gear Accumulates

Gear accumulates the way anything accumulates when you combine genuine interest with active avoidance of the activity the interest is supposedly for. I research gear when I could be planning a trip. I buy gear when I should be buying plane tickets. Each purchase feels like progress toward going outside. It is progress toward having more gear.

Linda asked me in 2022 why I had four rain jackets. I explained that each jacket represented a different weight-to-waterproofing tradeoff that was relevant for different conditions. She asked which conditions I had tested them in. I said I hadn't tested them yet. She nodded and left the room. I bought a fifth jacket two months later — a Helium II that is genuinely exceptional and which I have worn indoors on seventeen occasions.

What the Gear Room Is Now

The gear room now occupies one full wall of shelving in the garage, organized by category: sleep systems, navigation, shelter, clothing, cooking, lighting, and hydration. There is a map on the wall with locations circled. I circled them in 2021. I have not added new circles. I have added new gear.

The research for this site is, genuinely, the most detailed outdoor gear research being done from a temperature-controlled indoor environment. I know these products deeply. I have tested them within the limits available to me, which are real limits. I disclose them. This is what the site is: expert research from an expert who has not yet applied his expertise outdoors.

Linda is currently planning her third PCT section for next spring. She asked me if I wanted to come. I said I was in the research phase. She said "of course." We both understood what this meant.