by Graham Averill

Gear Geek: Confessions of an Outdoor Addict When my brother moved to Oregon, he said he was going to live a minimalist lifestyle. We were standing in our driveway just before he left. I think my mother was crying. My brother delivered his minimalist line while loading his DVD player, TV, VCR, computer, and Sony PlayStation into his friend’s van. And he said it without a hint of irony. He really meant it.

I think about my brother’s sense of minimalism every time I go into an outdoor store. Jogging sandals, heart rate monitors, graphite walking sticks with suspension systems, hiking boots with Goretex inners, satellite driven navigation systems, wicking shirts, wicking shirts that fight odor, ultra light sunglasses, rain jackets that compress down to the size of a quarter, personal hydration systems, halogen headlamps, energy bars, protein gels….When did taking a walk in the woods become so damn complicated? It’s as minimal as an activity gets. You wouldn’t think you’d need a pedometer and NASA energy goop to walk from one trailhead to another.

I’m not pointing fingers. This isn’t one of those diatribes about the pitfalls of our consumer culture. This is a call for help. I have what can only be classified as a gear fetish. I have six different pairs of hiking boots. I have a heart rate monitor I take to the grocery store. I have a two ounce, six inch emergency stove I carry with me on camping trips in case I run out of propane, and the forest runs out of sticks. I gobble up camping gear like it’s blue jeans and Beatles tapes and I’m living in communist Russia. Sleeping bags, stoves, lightweight chairs, backpack hammocks, daypacks, water purifiers, all-purpose tools-I have it all. Judging by the booming outdoor industry, I’m not the only one. I just learned that Columbia Sportswear is expanding its distribution into the Philippines. Even the citizens of Third World Nations have the primal need for $40 moisture wicking shirts.

Filipinos don’t know what they’re getting themselves into. Having a gear addiction is a never-ending process. In theory, once you have a good daypack, you don’t need to buy another one for a very, very long time. But nine months after you buy that first pack, North Face comes out with a brand new model that’s lighter, more user friendly and a different color. This is my problem; the new color. The backpack I already have is Sunset Red, but this new one is Cobalt Blue. How can anyone resist Cobalt Blue! And it has more pockets!

Then there’s hiker envy…keeping up with the Jones’, so to speak. I passed a hiker on the trail the other day with a Camelbak waist-pack. Needless to say, it was much cooler than my Camelbak. My Camelbak is of the standard over the shoulders variety. It’s so last season. For a brief second, I actually thought about mugging the guy, the way high school kids used to jump people for their Air Jordans. Of course, I didn’t. I nodded hello and kept hiking. But the question is, will I have enough will power the next time I see a hiker with a new, shiny piece of equipment that I don’t have? Heaven forbid I ever pass someone with a satellite phone. It’s the one piece missing from my gear ensemble. The promise of worldwide reception might be too much for me to handle. Imagine the possibilities: I could call MovieFone from the middle of the Pisgah National Forest!

And really, isn’t that what hiking is all about?

Graham Averill’s entire paycheck is spent at outdoor shops around Asheville. He can be reached at graham@blueridgeoutdoors.com.