Founded in 1898 as a kind of in-flight magazine for the Southern Pacific Railroad to lure travelers westward via train and ultimately entice them to purchase real estate (Southern Pacific was the largest landowner in the West), the magazine promoted California as an exotic natural paradise, an “outdoor wonderland” as Fish describes it. The movement was hardly fringe: Public figures like future-president Theodore Roosevelt, conservationist John Muir, and industrialist Stephen Mather worked together to create an organized system of national conservation. Peter Fish, Editor-at-Large for Sunset magazine, says they encouraged Americans “to get out into the wilderness for the preservation of their sanity and their souls.”Ĭalifornia proved the perfect spot to develop a national dialogue on conservation, and one place this discussion unfolded was in the pages of Sunset. Above: Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir in Yosemite, 1903. Top: Turn of the century campers enjoy simple pleasures out of doors. This camping impulse helped inspire the campaign to create America’s first National Parks. “I suspect that many of us are, after all, really camping temporarily in civilized conditions and that going into the wilderness is an escape, longed for, into our natural and preferred state,” wrote Warner. Popular essayist Charles Dudley Warner’s “In the Wilderness” series, published in 1878 in The Atlantic Monthly, presented camping as a blissful escape from the obligations of civilized society. The 19th-century antidote to poisonous urban blight? Going camping.įrom the get-go, journalists were all over the story. Berkeley librarian and author Susan Snyder in her book Past Tents: The Way We Camped. when “citizens were already seeking a respite from it,” observes U.C. Civilization was barely established in the western U.S. Remarkably, this was only twenty years or so after troubled wagon trains languished in barren deserts or frozen winter climes on their journey to the frontier (think Donner Party). Recreational camping first became trendy in the late 1800s, popularized by the exploits of naturalist John Muir, who wrote extensively during his years living in Yosemite beginning in 1868. And after a century of high-tech camping innovations, from Gore-Tex hiking boots to smartphone apps, our desire to “rough it” is virtually unchanged. Compelled by sublime landscapes and the conservationist bug, 19th-century city slickers saw camping as a way to ditch the daily grind, plunging into the wilderness their forebears had just conquered. But those who advocate for this type of shopping experience (yes, oftentimes you can save money, and that’s cool) are missing the point.The great cities of the West weren’t even complete before urban dwellers fantasized escaping them. No longer are you limited to the brands that your local shop carries, or what happens to be in stock.
Online retailers like Backcountry, Moosejaw and Sierra Trading Post put every piece of gear that you could ever want right at your fingertips. THE MOUNTAIN GOAT – Manchester Center, VTīuying outdoor gear in-person, in a brick-and-mortar store, is a less frequent occurrence than it was 10 years ago. REDPOINT CLIMBER’S SUPPLY – Terrebonne, OR INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT – Conway, NH SWITCHBACK GEAR EXCHANGE – Grand Rapids, MI
#INTO THE WILDERNESS CAMPING SHOP PRO#
Pro Tip: head to the basement for an extensive offering of used, vintage Patagonia gear.īurlington Town Center, 37 Church St ⇱ | (802) 860-0190 | Located on Church Street in a building that used to house an Old Navy, OGE carries many hard-to-find brands like DMM, Rab, Grivel, Salewa and Trew. Burlington, VT: Whether you’re looking for new gear or used, Burlington’s Outdoor Gear Exchange is the equivalent of a department store for outdoor adventurers.
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