@SpiderLegs Where would you have located the main store? Is REI in a better location due to being at the mall? Malls aren't doing that well these days. I remember you saying the Oro Valley location of SH was a particularly bad idea. A funny: the original owner used to call it the Stomach Hut, to hi...

The Forest Service had Old Baldy and Super Trail closed today for "bear mitigation". Guess our guy in the Santa Rita's is getting mitigated once they find him.

So the speedway store also closed? The last email I got from them said they were closing the Oracle store, but keeping the speedway store open? I remember the seeing big wall hammock hanging in the Alvernon store window, every time I drove by. Yep, I stopped by yesterday to pick at the carcass. Not...

@Jim - Putting my otherwise useless college degree in urban planning to use. Simple market research would dictate that you don't put an outdoor shop on the same street as your major competitor who is only 4 miles away. Plus there is a running store in the same shopping center that sells trail runni...

Someone else commented that the original owner was happy keeping the Summit Hut in an aging strip mall. The new owners paid for that new expensive building and a fortune to remodel it. They should have stayed in that strip mall or some other low rent location. Went to Sprouts next door to the Oro Va...

There were lines out the door to save 30% and once you picked up some items people were commenting that it took 60-90 minutes to get the cash register. Based on the pricing that I saw when I was there two weeks ago, 30% puts Summit Hut at the same pricing as REI's multiple yearly sales and 10% less ...

I'm going to guess that having Bass Pro Shops opening up next year wasn't a good omen. Over the years I've worked at outdoor shops and bicycle shops. Both industries tend to attract dreamers with a romantic notion of owning a cool business. There is an old joke that if you want to be worth $1 millio...

Guess it makes sense why the Cody fire was as short lived as it was. They put that out swiftly, it had the potential to take down half of the Catalinas like the Bighorn fire did a few years ago. I saw out of state reinforcements driving in the second day of the fire when it was still pretty small.

@RedRoxx44 - I just hope that the structures around American Flag came through unscathed but I'm not hopeful.

After my bout with Valley Fever and dealing now with asthma issues, I'm eyeing finding a place to escape for the summer when I retire in a few years. I'll have to keep this list handy.

I used to race bikes in the early 90's when the use of EPO skyrocketed in the professional cycling realm. Personally I wasn't a pro, but trained with guys that were and knew a couple of guys that rode in the Tour de France. Despite its dangers, anyway you can create extra EPO works. There is a reaso...

I finally washed my car on Saturday, everyone is welcome.

SJFL wrote:Is there migrant/drug traffic in the Supes?

Around Tucson when I come across migrant & smuggling sites the tip off is carpet squares and lots of empty food containers along with piles of clothing.

Falls are the fourth leading cause of death in old age, but it's only been recently that you have begun to hear about prevention. I used to attend a church with a very mature congregation and the pastor got up to give announcements and said that one of our elderly widows had just fallen for the seco...

I've been doing some sort of outside sales role or similar that requires driving around for almost 30 years and mostly in Arizona. My go to pit stop without hesitation is always QT Mart. Even the worst QT near my office which is full of zombies on fent is generally cleaner than any Circle K. Circle ...

My high school was a preparatory academy for working the assembly line at Jeep. I grew up about a mile away from the Jeep factory and one of my girlfriends back then lived on Willys Parkway. So I'm well acquainted with the types of guys that put Jeeps together and heard all the stories firsthand abo...

I rarely purchase anything in the store at REI anymore. But thanks to their fashion forward sales model, they often have lots of overstock on their website's clearance section. Found the clearance section to be a good way to find clothing and shoes at a substantial discount. Plus with their distribu...

It's very simple, people have money to spend on "have to have" items for their household and limited funds for "nice to have". REI is a store that only sells "nice to have" items. At the height of Covid, our local store posted this tiny little waif of a woman with blue ...

I made a lollipop on Strava once, a couple of "L's" and a lot of circles.

Tough time to be in the outdoor industry. Had a pair of Vasque Breeze's once that I pretty much wore out of the box into the Grand Canyon the next day with zero issues.