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TIL the trail register at the Cascade Pass ranger hut from 1978 lists gear I still can't afford
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angelarivera12d ago
Cascade Pass in 1978 and you're saying the gear still costs too much today? That is wild. A decent down jacket back then was maybe 80 bucks, which is like 400 in today's money, and people were buying them on ranger salaries. I can't wrap my head around how anyone afforded a full setup for a place like that. My uncle hiked there in the 80s and he said half his stuff was army surplus and hand me downs. The fact that the prices never really came down for the good stuff says a lot.
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baker.holly12d ago
Wait, are we sure the prices never came down? I would push back on that pretty hard. My dad bought a decent down jacket in the 90s for way less than 400 in today's money, and brands like REI and North Face have budget lines now that cost a fraction of what the fancy stuff runs. The gear did get cheaper in a lot of ways, we just keep buying the top tier stuff because the internet tells us we need it. Your uncle's army surplus thing kind of proves my point, people made it work with cheap gear back then and they still can today. The real change is that we all think we need the 600 dollar jacket when a 150 dollar one would do the same job for most trips.
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