Trade the Performance for Freedom: Embrace Plastic Free Outdoor Gear

I walked out of REI yesterday with a pair of thin wool socks and a weird feeling I couldn’t shake.

The whole place used to make me feel energized—like I was gearing up for some adventure bigger than myself. Now I don’t know. Lately it’s starting to feel more like buying into a Cosmic REI Cosplay™ than actually getting ready for the woods. I mean yeah, the store still smells like bike tires and optimism, but look closer: we’re wading through racks of lightweight plastic jackets in earth-toned designer hues pretending to be camo for sustainability.

It's all so damn… sleek. Seam-taped. Space-age. Sage green and “ocean fog.” Everything whispering “sustainable innovation,” while mostly just being fancy spun petroleum.

And yeah, I get it. Nature’s brutal. Cold sucks, wet sucks harder, and nobody wants to carry a 12-pound waxed canvas tent uphill. Gear exists for a reason. But at some point we crossed a line—maybe without noticing—and now even a weekend hike needs enough synthetic layering to launch us into low orbit.

You ever look around one of those stores and feel like you’re shopping for survival, not serenity?

The packaging tells you it’s “made from 97% recycled water bottles,” but it still smells like compromise. Like we’re piling empty answers onto a deep, aching question. We went looking for wildness and came back padded, zippered, and laminated—ready for the elements, but numb to the ones inside ourselves.

And the contradiction is exhausting.

I see the kid debating between five versions of the same ultralight pack in burnt orange, trying to look like he knows what he’s doing. I’ve been him. Still am sometimes. Chasing the right jacket, thinking maybe waterproof breathability will fix what’s broken. Newsflash: it won’t.

The problem is we’re buying our way into discomfort-proof adventure, and somewhere in that process we deaden the very thing we came here to feel: aliveness.

The cold that bites and reminds you you’re out there. The ache in your back from carrying actual weight. The decision to hike a little longer even though your gear isn’t the latest model of carbon-fiber ultragear whatever.

You know who walks out of REI feeling lighter? The guy who knows what he actually needs. Who’s not trying to perform “outdoorness” but just wants to feel the dirt under his boots again.

The rest of us—still clinging to the idea that maybe if we find the right $279 jacket, the woods won’t scare us anymore—we’re walking out heavier, one recycled zip pocket at a time.

I’m not suggesting we trade it all for soggy cotton and blistered feet. I’m saying maybe we start from a different question.

Not: which product feels 3% more conscious?

But: what do I already have, can I fix it, and what can I buy—once, truly—that doesn’t just look eco-friendly under bright white lights, but actually leaves less mess behind?

Maybe that’s a small company making plastic free outdoor gear because they believe that nature can’t be protected by dressing like astronauts. Maybe it’s some beat-up gear your uncle passed down after fifty trails. Maybe it’s learning to be okay with “good enough” instead of “optimized.”

I want gear that does the job—and lets me leave it behind once I’m out there. That doesn’t follow me into the moment with pull cords and specs and laminated ultraflex wind panels. I want to hear wind, not performance fabric rustling in my ears.

Because the woods don’t care what your base layer’s made of.

They just want you to walk in without pretending.