The collar on my favorite SmartWool merino zip-T base layer top is frayed, and the end of the sleeves around the wrists are torn and stringy.
That really hurts. I love that zip-T. I’ve grown attached to my favorite shirts, which have been on miles of trails and rivers with me.
There’s a hole in the elbow of my Patagonia Capilene zip-T. Can you imagine the heartbreak?
There’s no way I’m going to quit wearing it. If need be, I’ll cut the sleeves off and use it as a performance T-shirt.
CLASSIC HOLES
A pair of my favorite REI Polartec longjohn bottoms has holes in the knees. Toss ’em?
No way. If they get bad enough, I’ll cut off the bottoms of the legs and make them short johns I can wear under hiking shorts or boating shorts.
The point is, if you’re like me, you wear your outdoor clothing to the bone. I don’t think I’ve ever thrown any away.
One of my wool sweaters is 42 years old.
I’ve got another old Ragg wool sweater with a 1,000 miles of cross-country skiing on it. (Well, many hundreds of miles.) It’s got holes in the armpits.
A wool sweater I wear for biking was a hand-me-down from my oldest son. He wore it in high school.
There’s something sacred about wool and synthetic outdoor clothes. They produce good karma.
No matter how frayed or holey, they still have insulating life in them, and besides that, they’ve been on some of my most enjoyable outings.
Oh yeah, there’s that other thing, too. Replacing them ain’t cheap. With merino wool base layers going for $80 to $90, you want to wear your old stuff into the ground.
Some merino wool sweaters go for $150 to $200. Capilene and Polartec base layers go for upwards of $30 to $50.
It gets you to thinking: “Do I really need new stuff just because the old stuff looks like it’s going to disintegrate?”
I felt a little better about wearing frayed outdoor clothing after reading Patagonia’s Common Threads Initiative, which says to reduce, repair, reuse, recycle and reimagine. Thanks, Patagonia, for showing me the light.
FRAYED IN FASHION
Do I really need to buy another synthetic top? Is it in vogue to wear a top with a frayed neck and then refer to the Common Threads Initiative?
Repair? Well, that’s when duct tape or a sewing machine comes in handy. I once had a favorite pair of camp jeans with five iron-on patches on the knees and butt.
Reuse? That’s easy. Just donate outdoors clothing that you don’t use anymore to charity. That keeps the clothing in circulation, according to Patagonia.
Recycle? Patagonia has a cool program where the company will take back Patagonia gear that is worn out. The company’s website says that, since 2005, it has taken back 45 tons of clothing for recycling and made 34 tons into new garments.
SAVING RESOURCES
Reimagine is thinking about the resources you save by not buying new stuff, plain and simple.
If you want more information on Patagonia’s program, go to IdahoStatesman.com to find the link.
If anything, Patagonia’s initiative has made me really appreciate my old comfortable, warm wool sweaters and tattered base layers, and all the memories of camping, skiing and boating trips I’ve had while wearing them.
I wore that old Ragg wool sweater exploring Banner Ridge, northeast of Idaho City, on cross-country skis back in the ’70s — many years before the area was in the Park N’ Ski System.
In fact, the sweater still has a slight odor of that creosote-smelling ski wax. What was it? Oh yeah, Jack Rabbit?
Holes are hip, and so are the memories.
Zimo: 377-6445
Statesman outdoor writers Pete Zimowsky and Roger Phillips alternate columns on Sunday. Look for Roger next week.
