I was thinking about this the other day in a campground, noticing the frayed collar on a favorite REI hiking shirt I must have bought in about 2004. They have d

I was thinking about this the other day in a campground, noticing the frayed collar on a favorite REI hiking shirt I must have bought in about 2004. They have definitely made the fabric thinner in recent years as well as sometimes changing the style in unhelpful ways. But, these thinner fabrics do also perform quite well in hot sun. They just don't have the same durability. I also thought of my down-filled mummy sleeping bag in the tent, which is c. 1985 and proudly made in China by the Swan company. It works great after all these years, only a little stained by iron oxide and having lost a drawstring from the hood. My father bought a matching pair as a set, and I inherited the other half from my brother, so my wife and I can zip them together and have a cozy sack for two. Modern bags may have a bit more loft and pack a little bit smaller, but not enough to want to replace these. When breaking camp, I noticed my c. 2013 tent had sheared off an attachment point between the rain fly and the poles. I may try to fix it with some of that crazy tent-repair tape, as I did when it went for a tumble in high winds once. But, I think back to some old tents my family purchased around the same time as my sleeping bag, and am glad to have this amazingly light weight tent instead. Those old ones have probably lost their waterproofing to rot, but their fiberglass poles were so heavy I'd never want to drag it somewhere again. Shoes on the other hand are a disappointment. I have watched the average life span of hiking shoes decrease rapidly.