Found on the Island of Lost Toys

We’ve likely all met the old guy who, gripping his crusty jacket, battered skis, or cracked boots, will tell you without a glimmer of irony that:

• “They don’t make them like they used to.” 
• “They just work for me.”
• “This new stuff is just a cash grab.” 
• “Bring back the old stuff. I like the old stuff more.” 

These men are cowards, Donny. They are afraid of change. No piece of current outdoor gear is outclassed by a comparable thing last produced during the Great Recession. Grilamid has left them long behind.

The quirkier gear is the worst. It’s bad enough when someone says their thrift-store rear-entry boots fit better. Sure sure. But sometimes, the ancient gear is whacky, too. It combines two things we have since learned are not good together (reverse sidecut and anything), or fails to account for something we now know (or think) is critical (our knuckles when ice climbing), or, worst of all, solves a problem we find comical. Age enhances the inscrutability of these relics: an exciting game.

To some degree, my snobbery is just fashion. Times change, and the next generation thinks tight ski pants are cool. And then the next generation thinks baggy ski pants and those weird, rectangular sunglasses are cool. Recently, I saw a friend, Sam, and his dad, Mike. I’ve known them since I was too young to have any taste. Sam and I, both 30, were making fun of how dumb the “kids” sound now. He works a summer camp for boys 7-17, so he would know. We asked Mike if we sounded that dumb when we were 7-17. He didn’t even need to draw a breath to answer. Obviously.

But there is a difference between fashion and evolution. Shaped skis are not a fad, Mike. Evolution is something distinct from the fickle winds of preference. Maybe evolution is just a hard-to-resist new fashion, a virus that cannot be stopped. Glossy catalogs and native advertising fool us into seeing fashion as an evolution when this year’s stuff is merely a darker red for Ms. Piggy’s lips. But the boots of yesteryear are a lesser form entirely from the wide stable of frustratingly narrow “1kg+” boots available now— not simply a change in topsheets. Evolution is real, even in the ski industry, famous for its lipstick skills.

Sometimes, like in real life, “the fittest survive” the fashion battles within the outdoor industry and spread their seed to all the ski factories. Everyone makes freeride skis. Cool! But sometimes—you’ll forgive my shaky understanding of evolution—changes in the DNA sequence neither win nor lose. They migrate to the periphery, claiming a dusty niche or barren valley for themselves—a place where these aberrations can hide from the genetically superior freeride skis.