We're getting Geared Up!

We're getting Geared Up!

Greetings, Trekkers and Travellers! Choices and size limits. They can be problematic, can't they? Suppose you're travelling by plane. First, you must carefully measure to ensure that your carry-on luggage is precisely the right size. You don't want to risk the dire consequences of it being too large (at least, from the way some of the flight attendants look at us, we've figured they must be dire!) And your check-in luggage, of course, needs to be exactly under the weight limit, or - well, in that case, of course, you'll still be allowed on, but woe betide you if you have to pay those dollar-per-gram overlimit fines! And that's just luggage. What about the things you pack in it? Say you're off to buy a pair of boots. A long time ago, when you were still innocent in the ways of footwear, you thought that you'd walk into a shop, pick out a pair that caught your fancy, get the right size, and voilà, you'd hit the trails. But no! First there were styles:  mid cut, high cut, alpine -- then features. Nylon or leather: nubuck or suede; waterproofing: Gore-tex® or Keen Dry®?and then when you finally get it narrowed down, that's right --  size becomes the issue. Do you know what your size is? 36 European? 6 US? What about half sizes - does it come in a half size? You feel you're about to run out of the store crying "All I wanted was a pair of boots! Boots that fit! Was that too much to ask?!" Choices and size limits can be a problem for us, too. As an independent retailer and as outdoor enthusiasts, we want to offer you the very best equipment and clothing out there. As gear heads, we realize how important a wide and varied selection is! And as people who, once upon a time, started with a blank slate to learn about equippings and clothing and technique, we know how confusing all the choices and technical aspects can be. Then, as far as size limits go, we recently ran into our first cyber wall: how to best transmit that information to you! See, we realize that you are a busy person, living in today's fast-paced world with all its obligations and deadlines. And that sometimes, when you have a trip or holiday coming up, you can't always spare several hours to come into our store and just wander around and chat with us for hours on end. At the same time, we feel very strongly that it would be doing you a disservice to try and condense important information we want to share with you to within an 140 twitter character limit. And sometimes even a longer blurb on facebook isn't enough. So we've started up this blog! We feel this will be the best forum for us for when we want to go into more detail about something; when we have an experience we want to share with you, or when you've asked us a question and we need more space to give you an answer. We''ll be working hard to keep it relevent, and we'll need your help for that! Do you have questions about gear that you've always wondered? Send them in to us here and we'll do our best to get them answered in a clear concise way without overloading you with tech-speak and fancy jargon. Our website (the current one, as well as the new one which will be launched soon) has our gear guides and clothing lists and plenty of useful information like that and we'd encourage you to go and have a look at it. We don't want to be repetitious, so we won't be doubling up on something that we've already got somewhere else - but if need be we'll send you in the right direction! This is a new venture for us and we're eager to see how it goes. We've got a wealth of first-hand information literally at our fingertips, so we'll be eagerly waiting to hear from you. Happy reading! Trek & Travel Team