Wonderland Gear Exchange I have sold quite a bit of my extra gear there and picked up some great deals on a few used items as well.
Portland Area
Next Adventure has a basement section devoted to used gear
Colorado
Boulder Sports Recycler is a Boulder, CO based consignment shop with 25+ years in the business. It’s awesome to see a outdoor focused consignment shop be in business that long and they proudly have the mindset of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Corporate Options
REI is now starting to be much better about selling used gear in store and online. They also have a new trade in program as well. I haven’t used it yet but curious to see how well it works. If anyone has tried it let me know!
Arc’Teryx just started selling used gear as well. As expensive and well built as their stuff is I am very curious to see how they do.
Online
Facebook Marketplace can be hit and miss. Local options for Puget Sound area are Mountaineers Market Place and Mountaineers Gear Trade, Swap, and Sell
Isellaoutdoors is female owned and ran Outdoor Consignment business. Proceeds from their sales fund gear scholarships to combat toxic gear culture and empower women, BIPOC and other marginalized identies to access the gear they need to get out and adventure.
Have you bought used gear before? How was your experience and would you recommend? Please comment below and let’s have a conversation about how we can change the perception on used gear. Also if there are other resources I missed please let me know and I will get them added.
At the end of 2020 we started a drive down to Arizona and had two days in Joshua Tree National Park to try our hand at bouldering there. We arrived late in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve and were able to catch the last moments of the sun as they settled in the west. We got up early the next morning and headed to Hidden Valley Campground to see how well our bouldering skills measured up.
For the first part of the morning we started exploring the Hidden Valley Campground Boulder circuit and promptly got shut down hard. It was still rather cold, we weren’t warmed up yet, and the problems were much harder than we expected.
I ended up ripping open a finger tip and everyone was feeling a little frustrated with the problems so we moved over to The Womb and Manx boulders. There we had much better luck and really started to enjoy the feel of bouldering on the amazing rock at Joshua Tree.
After getting through half a winter in Seattle we all enjoyed the sunshine even if it was still a little cold.
After getting shut down so hard on some of the other “beginner” boulders in the area the Manx boulders were a perfect morale booster for us all. After spending some time there we decided to try out a new spot before the sun got to low. We ended up working on the Echo Rock Traverse which was a fantastic slab traverse in the Echo Rock area. Everyone enjoyed the fun movements as the Joshua Tree shadows stretched further onto the slab.
Soon the sun began to set and the temperatures plummeted with them. We packed up our stuff and headed into town for the evening. The weather forecast for the next morning looked promising so an early start was necessary to try and get some sunrise photos in. Our planning and lack of sleep paid off and here are some of the results.
There is just something amazing about Joshua Tree and the emotion of the place. It’s something intangible and one that I don’t have the right words to express yet but it is sublime.
We soon met up with the rest of our group and started to climb again. Actually we started to get humbled again as the “easy” bouldering circuit at Cap Rock again proved very difficult. It was a great walk around the area though and we appreciated seeing some of the classic problems there that were way beyond our skill level. The stoke was still high as it warmed up and we settled on getting some attempts in on The Hatrack boulder. None of the problems here ended up being that easy for any of us but it was fun regardless.
Soon we were hitting our time limit though which meant we needed to head out of the park and off to our final destination in Arizona. The time was short in Joshua Tree and the problems were hard but once again I left there having a ton of fun and a deep sense of admiration for the climbers there.
For those curious about the history of the indigenous peoples that came before us check out here and for the National Park history go here.
As always, if you want to purchase any of these photos check out my photography website for some of my favorites there. If you don’t see the one you like send me an email and I am happy to do a custom print for you. Thanks for reading and happy bouldering!
