Hot take: That $200 tent I bought from a guy in a parking lot saved my trip

Met a guy named Dave behind a REI in Portland who was selling his used tent out of his truck. He told me it leaked once near a creek in Oregon and he patched it himself with some tape. I gave him $200 cash on the spot and took it on a 4 day solo trip in the Gifford Pinchot forest. It held up through two nights of drizzle and one hard downpour without a drop inside. Has anyone else bought gear from a random person and had it work out better than store bought?

2 comments

2 Comments

rosek7310d ago

Hold on wait, snapped TWO poles on other tents? That’s kind of wild. @evan_morgan81 I gotta ask, did your buddy Kyle ever actually try to fix that seam on his REI tent himself or did he just go buy another one? I swear, the random parking lot gear always has the best karma. Makes you wonder why we bother with retail sometimes.

evan_morgan8110d ago

You ever have a buddy who makes terrible decisions but somehow gets amazing results? My friend Kyle bought a used Mountain Hardwear tent from some dude at a trailhead near Mount Rainier for $80 cash. The guy said it had a small hole near the zipper that he fixed with aquaseal. Kyle took it on a 10 day trip in the Olympics and it went through wind gusts that snapped two tent poles on other people's shelters. Not a single problem. Meanwhile his brand new $400 tent from REI had a seam failure on the second trip. Sometimes the universe just picks a winner.