September is the beginning of prime hiking season here in Vermont and it's a great time to pick up a new hiking backpack to stash the gear you'll need. We've already seen the first leaves change color and are expecting fall colors to arrive a little early this year. We're kicking the season off with a 20% Off SALE on a great selection of OSPREY BACKPACKS. Whether you're looking for a lightweight hydration pack or a planning for an expedition you need look no farther.

With cooler, drier days its a good idea to be prepared with extra layers, i.e. a warm, quick drying base layer and a mid-weight fleece or windproof outer layer. This is especially true if you're heading to a summit where temperatures are much lower than the trailhead and the wind chill factor drops the "feels like" temperature even more. While there are many perfect fall days here where you can enjoy the sun in a t-shirt on top of a mountain, a light pair of gloves and a hat can be a good idea. A lightweight, waterproof, breathable shell is also a good insurance policy as you can never quite predict what may happen while you're on the trail.

If you're in the area or planning a trip, the folks down the road at the Green Mountain Club offer excellent info on local hikes. In addition to hiking and backpacking advice, they can also provide helpful hints on what to take with you and what to look for. Of course we're more than happy to point you in the right direction, too! Our store is located on Route 100 North in Waterbury Center on the way to Mount Mansfield and Nebraska Notch; two of our favorite places to hike.

It's not over, 'til its over.

The kids may be back at school, but we're still enjoying some summer camping. Mother Nature's cooperating too with some beautiful days here in Waterbury Vermont. Tonight we're camped out in our Big Agnes Lynx Pass 4 again, sleeping on the Rolls Royce of camping pads...the Nemo Cosmo Air and Pillowtop Sleep System. But enough about us.

If you're reading this blog you probably know this is where we tip off friends and fans on upcoming sales, deals and clearance pricing. Within 10 days we'll be starting our bi-annual Osprey backpack sale. As for myself, I just picked up an Osprey Stratos 36 for myself; it's big enough to haul the family's gear on a day hike and just big enough for me to escape for a night in the woods on my own. Check back here after Labor Day for a list of backpacks featured in our sale. Look for prices that are 20% of MSRP on most bags!

Of course, I'm always fussing over having the right boots for the occasion. If you're like me you might want to head on over to our men's and women's boot clearance to see if you can score yourself a great deal!

Big Agnes & GoLite Sleeping Bag SALE!

As nights in the outdoors start to get a little colder, quality sleeping bags come to mind. That’s why we’re having a SLEEPING BAG SALE that includes several award winning bags! To start we’ve put three great 40 degree summer bags on sale:

• The NEW GoLite RS1+ Season Quilt received a 2010 Backpacker Magazine’s Editors Choice Award
• the Yampa 40 degree down sleeping bag
  
• the Cross Mountain 40 degree synthetic sleeping bag
  

All three bags offer lightweight coverage at a lightweight price of up to 20% off!

If you’re looking for an environmentally friendly sleeping bag we’ve got two bags that are as green as any bag gets:

• The GoLite RS 25 degree 3-season sleeping bag is made of 100% recycled material.

• The Big Agnes Tumble Mountain 20 degree sleeping bag is another 2010 Backpacker Award winner.

If what you need is a warmer, colder weather bag for fall or winter we’ve got what are the roomiest and arguably the comfiest men’s and women’s sleeping bags:

· The Big Agnes Lost Ranger 15 degree down sleeping bag and

· The Big Agnes Roxy Ann 15 degree down sleeping bag

Both of these bags won recognition from Backpacker Magazine’s gear testers last fall when they were awarded Editor’s Choice honors.

Finally for those of you who you like sleeping out when it’s really cold - or you just need to be prepared for anything - we highly recommend you check out the Big Agnes Farwell 0 degree sleeping bag with Climashield HL insulation. But if you are holding out for the ultimate then the GoLite Adrenaline 0 degree 4 season is the bag for you. Built to excel on winter ski tours and in frigid camping conditions, the Adrenaline is GoLite's most efficient 4-Season mummy bag. This goose down bag features a center front zip, making it ideal for back and side sleepers. And because its a GoLite, you can feel good about saving the environment while sleeping in it.

SALES GALORE at CCOutdoorStore.com!

What a great time to be shopping for outdoor gear! There so many bargains on hiking and backpacking gear...and there are still plenty of warm, long days to use them in the backcountry. With all the great deals on backpacks, tents, and hiking boots we created a Summer 2010 Clearance page for them. Find a great deal of up to 50% off everything from trekking poles to glacier glasses.

If you're looking to upgrade your old hiking or backpacking boots we've created a Men's Backpacking Boot Clearance page and a Women's Backpacking Boot Clearance page. Here you'll find some great buys on Lowa,Vasque, and Zamberlan boots. Please note that we have only one of each of these boots in the specified size and once they are gone...well you know...they're gone.

Last but not least we're running a 20% off Sale on select Big Agnes tents, sleeping bags, and pads for the next week. (If you know what you're looking for and want to see an overview of all of the Big Agnes offerings in a category and which is on sale, you can navigate straight to the BA Sleeping Bag Page, the BA Sleeping Pad page, or the BA Tent page).

Need some ideas? Cozy up with your partner in the Big Agnes King Solomon double sleeping bag or Big Agnes Cabin Creek double sleeping bag. But first get your kids settled into their Big Agnes Porcupine Junior Down bag for a long nature's rest - with creature comforts like this they'll beg to go hiking camping with you for years to come! Don't forget to get a Big Agnes Sleeping Pad so you get the full integrated pad effect. It's Big Agnes' claim to fame - never roll off your pad again! (note you can still get the effect with other pads, too). Check back here again for more sale features, or just visit us at CCOutdoorStore.com and browse to your heart's content!

Set up your whole family with new gear for a fall adventure - or now that your mind is fresh from your latest hiking or camping trip - get some great deals now for an early start next summer. Either way now is a GREAT time to shop CCOutdoorStore.com.

On the Matter of Warranties - and GREAT outdoor brands!

While at the Vermont Mountain Bike Festival this weekend, we spent a good deal of time practicing our tent set-up skills at the Nemo Tent booth Nicole from the home office surprised us with something new we didn’t already know about their tents…they all come with a lifetime warranty!

It’s a testament to the quality of the brands we carry that many of them come with lifetime guarantees. You may have seen on our last post that on several occasions MSR (and Thermarest - both owned by Cascade Designs) have shocked us by covering product issues (like broken tent poles) by replacing items at no cost to the customer…even when the damage clearly wasn’t a defect, but was the result of customer action and normal wear.

In backpacks both Gregory and Osprey cover their packs with lifetime warranties, and even our Darn Tough wool socks come with a lifetime guarantee... Imagine that!

Boot and watch manufacturers tend to treat warranties differently. Since both products can be subjected to extensive daily use--and wear and tear—their warranties are more limited. All of our boot manufacturers limit their guarantees against defects in workmanship or materials to 1 year, yet we’ve seen extensions made in some cases. Believe us we’ve recently seen some cases where boots have been subjected to so much abuse in as little as two weeks that the line between a product failure and user issue has been pretty close. Never-the-less our three boot brands Lowa, Zamberlan, and Vasque have been Fantastic to work with, have quickly dealt with the issues, and have been generous in honoring warranty requests. St. Moritz watches come with a 2/4/6 year warranty. More than a great service record, though, we have heard from many many customers - and seen the reviews on the web - of the amazing quality of these boots and watches. Perhaps even more telling in this case is the number of warranty issues we have NOT been called about.

At CCOutdoorStore our goal is to make sure you get a quality product, but in rare case when something isn't perfect, we work hard to be your advocate and give you the service you deserve. Just give us a call at 1-802-244-4000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-802-244-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-802-244-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or email us at info@ccoutdoorstore.com and we’ll get the process moving so as to minimize your down time.

The MSR Hubba Hubba Tent - legendary innovation, quality and service

At CCOutdoorStore.com, we pride ourselves on bringing our customers the best gear with a good price and fast and friendly service. But what makes gear good, much less "the best"? We think it's about innovation, yes, but just as important is long-term durability and a strong product quality program.

Enter the MSR Hubba Hubba tent from Cascade Designs. This tent boasted the latest innovation in lightweight tent design a few years back. And in what we consider to be a great move, they actually DIDN'T change it just for the sake of change!

The Hubba Hubba's Innovation:
Ushering in camping and backpacking innovation in 2007, the MSR® Hubba™ 1-person and MSR® Hubba Hubba™ 2-person tents were introduced with a one-pole hub and swivel design to deliver the perfect combination of light weight and livability. This great design was simple and easy to set up, but revolutionary in delivering interior space without a lot of extra weight and gizmos. That alone went a long way to making the MSR Hubba Hubba a highly sought-after backpacking and camping tent. And the innovation still holds strong today... the MSR Hubba Hubba still one of the best-selling ultralight tents in the world.

Other features like the two doors and two large vestibule areas make the Hubba Hubba a great backpacking or small camping tent for any adventure. Two people and their gear can move around pretty comfortably, and only carry 4 pounds, 3 oz to the campsite. With its virtually total screen body, you can use the MSR Hubba Hubba without the fly for those great nights when you just want to sleep under the stars but WITHOUT the bugs!

MSR Hubba Hubba Quality:
Cascade Designs - parent company to MSR products - backs all of its products with a lifetime guarantee. And they don't split hairs with you about what that means.

We recently had a customer who had his Hubba Hubba tent for over a year and broke his poles. He was very apologetic because the break was not due to normal wear and tear, but rather was caused from from external and undue pressure on the poles. He wanted to pay for a new set. Now we knew about Cascade Designs' fantastic lifetime warranty on all their MSR tents, stoves, and snowshoes, but figured this was a borderline case. After speaking with Cascade Designs, we discovered they would replace the Hubba Hubba tent poles for free. Great!

And a few months back a customer who had her Hubba Hubba tent for more than 5 years and used it well (and quite often) poked a hole in her fly. You guessed it, Cascade Designs was willing to fix free of charge. Unbelievable!

Now we're pretty sure there's a bunch of legal jargon that says that Cascade Designs does not have to replace anything and everything on an MSR Hubba Hubba tent whether it's due to abuse or normal wear and tear or not - but in practice, these guys do what's right... and even go above and beyond. They've even got a great repair program that saves the landfills and extends the life perfectly good equipment for many many years.

In our experience, when it comes to MSR and the Hubba Hubba Tent we're not talking about a lot of product quality issues - this backpacking workhorse is build to last right out of the box.

So a big shout out to Cascade Designs/MSR for making such a fantastic lightweight tent for backpacking, but most of all for standing by it with their lifetime warranty and general customer-friendly approach to each and every product.

Check out the MSR Hubba Hubba Tent at CCOutdoorStore.com today.

see also:
MSR Hubba Hubba HP Tent

The Tents are coming! The Tents are coming!

The tents are coming! The tents are coming! ... a message from Reed and Maureen McCracken, owner-operators of CCOutdoorStore.com.

We've got a new shipment of Sierra Designs tents making it's way to us at this very moment.

• Great classic tents like the Sirius 2 person tent and Vapor Lite 2
• Updated classic tents like the Clip Flashlight 2 and Meteor Light 3 and the Light Year 1
• Great value 3-season tents like Zeta 4 person tent.
  

We were in a Sierra Designs Lightening XT 4 not so long ago and I'll tell you it was a snap to put up...and very roomy. With nearly vertical sidewalls this backpacking tent would also be a roomy car camping tent for a young family. We can't wait to open up the boxes of all these great Sierra Designs tents. So which tent will we be sending to you?? Check out the full Sierra Designs Tents page and place your order today!

Also in tent news... this past week we took in a big shipment of Nemo's Meta 2P tent. So they are IN STOCK NOW and ready to ship within 24 hours of your order. The Meta 2P is the ultimate in the new ultralight backpacking category and is HOT HOT HOT! This is a tent you gotta grab while you can because people are just snapping them up. Check out the Backpacker Editor's Choice video review HERE. We're also anticipating more Nemo tents coming into inventory in the coming days - check out the great deals and options on our Nemo page. Later this week we'll get re-stocked on the roomy Asashi 4P. If only there were enough of those Asashi's to go around, we'd take one for ourselves!

Speaking of ourselves, we got back from a recent family camping trip where we tried out the Big Agnes' Lynx Pass 4P. What a value! At $299 you get an incredibly versatile all-around great tent. Yeah, you can find lighter tents, but there are a lot of more cost effective ways to shave a pound from your back than missing out on this tent. Our family of four fit fine...in fact it was surprising roomy. Best of all, with four corner vents in the fly there was practically NO condensation overnight, as an added bonus each corner had a mesh pocket for each family members' headlamp and personal items. Plus it was a snap to put up. The Lynx Pass 2-person and Lynx Pass 3-person tents utilize the same innovative pole architecture and share the same great features - just a bit smaller.

Isn't time YOU pitched a new tent? Check out our complete selection @ CCOutdoorStore.com