We have a month or so until a couple of friends and myself trek down to New Hampshire to hike in the White Mountains Region. As exciting as the trip is, it also takes its toll on the wallet with backpacks and new hiking boots. Nevertheless at least I don’t have to purchase new equipment.
A friend and I made our way to Mountain Equipment Co-op in Toronto thinking we could definitely find some good selection only to realize that they’ve turned the entire Toronto location into some trendy urban lifestyle environmentally friendly store with poor selection of backpacks, shoes and other hiking gear. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad at all but the store really has a big box feel to it that makes me feel icky. My friend and I then walked across the street to Europe Bound, a smaller store with a focus on traveling but with hikers and campers in mind. As soon as I walked in, I actually felt pretty comfortable, no big box feel. The selection was definitely better but then my friend suggested we go on over to Hiker’s Haven the following week.
So fast forward a week and this morning we ended up at Hiker’s Haven all the way in Oakville, Ontario. After some snail-paced traffic, we were finally able to check out a vast amount of hiking gear. The feel of the store was definitely pretty good with no corporate big box influences. Perhaps it’s just my instinct but when I see a mess (not literally) of hiking gear rather than simply wide-open spaces and neatly-stacked clothes, I feel more comfortable going through and finding what I want.
Anyways, thanks to a very kind and patient woman who helped two of my friends and I for hours, we were able to find what we were looking for and I was able to get an excellent Lowe Alpine pack and some good comfortable hiking footwear. There were more things but nevermind …
Click here to check out the Lowe Alpine Wilderness Pack and the Montrail - Torre GTX Classic. Not quite exactly what I got but it’s close! I’ll let you know what I think of them in a couple weeks when I take them for a test run on a “pre-hike”.
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