[at-l] outfitters

[thornel@attglobal.net (W F Thorneloe)]

New York City is one of my favorite trail towns. On my last trip, I found a 
very good gear shop, Tents & Trails at 21 Park Place. That is just north of 
the Financial District in Tribeca. They had very good selections of packs, 
bags, boots, and such. I tried to get them to sell me some boots one 
Saturday AM. The guy (sorry, no name but a middle aged runner type), taught 
me all I would ever want to know about vapor barrier socks, and how much of 
their gear goes toward keeping news and movie crews warm during NYC winters 
and rain. I bought the VBS's, liners and another pair of Smartwools. I've 
taken them out into the cold, and they performed far better than I would 
have expected.

REI at Perimeter in Atlanta is pretty good, although I suspect the other 
store has more merchandise. I went to the Perimeter store to get a few 
freeze dried treats (didn't have the corn), and decided to look at boots. 
They had the Salamon Mid Exit 2000 size 13's that the Hansen's told me I 
needed but were out of stock at Walasi-Yi. Well, I goofed around and tried 
out a couple of the clerks on this. One female clerk seemed pretty much 
alone in the shop, but kept up with everything pretty well. A high school 
boy helped recommend Smartfeet insoles, as I suspected were to be needed.

A bit later I asked a late 20's female clerk for assistance to look into 
the Phil Orens fitting system. She did a very thorough job measuring and 
recording, with much the same result as at Walasi-Yi using eyeball and 
finger in the boot approach.

Frankly, I didn't expect much of the new boots and insoles, as wearing them 
around a bit after shopping seemed to have the old familiar stinging on the 
bottoms of my feet. Yet, yesterday I walked with Sally the Gear Eatting 
Boxer about 6 miles on the Silver Comet with new boots and Smartfeet and 
Smartwools as planned. I know this was not a huge inclined hill, but no 
slopping around the boot, no numbness, no pain, and no blisters after 5.5+ 
miles in 90 minutes.

So, here are kudos to Tents & Trails, Walasi-Yi and Atlanta Perimeter REI 
for friendly service and expertise.

OrangeBug

At 09:14 AM 2/5/2001 -0500, Mara Factor wrote:
>Another good AT outfitter:
>
>Kent, CT:  Don't remember the name of the store but I went in there ready 
>to by a pair of tips for my Leki's.  The guy took one look at my poles, 
>replaced a pole segment and two tips while I was standing there with my 
>parents who were mostly slackjawed.   He said he would just let Leki know 
>what he replaced for free and they would send him replacements.