Friday, February 24, 2012

Wheels Within Wheels Within Dorks

Now, what I really like, and what you should get is...

Gear Head: A hiker whose main focus is backpacking and outdoors gear.

Gear Head: A thru-hiker who has hiked a thousand miles or two thousand miles, or more, and still talks about nothing but gear.

Gear Head: A hiker who talks about gear all the time, owns one of almost every piece of gear imaginable, and wants more.

Gear Head: A store rat. Someone who has all the catologs, knows all the web sites, and spends months on end poring over pictures and descriptions of hiking and backpacking gear. This person can tell you the difference between the 1980 Kelty Kumquat and the 2012 model, and all the variations in between. On the trail a gear head will generally talk about nothing but gear, especially to lecture you on why yours is lousy and theirs isn't. A gear head will spend hundreds of dollars a year to replace old gear with new gear even if the old gear was never used, and will have endless explanations of why this is mandatory.