**UPDATE August 25** The fire tower in the “Fire Tower Sunset” graphic shown below has been updated to feature the fire tower on Mt. Beacon, based on one of my favorite photos from that trail guide! The images that feature that graphic below show the old design that has since been replaced in the shop. Hope you like the new design!
Want to look sharp on the trails (or anywhere else?), show off your love for hiking in the Hudson Valley, and throw some love (and by love I mean money) at the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, too?
Well, now’s your chance!
From now through September 15, 100% (the highest of all the percents!) of proceeds generated from the purchase of gear from Hike the Hudson Valley’s online store will be donated to the NY-NJ Trail Conference, the organization that makes so many of our adventures possible.
Did you know that the NY-NJ Trail Conference has coordinated over 400,000 volunteer-hours over the past five years, maintaining over 2,100 miles of trails so that the rest of us have awesome natural places to explore? If you’ve hiked around here, you have benefited from the work that they do. Let’s send some support their way.
If you’d prefer to thank them by just donating directly to the Trail Conference, that works, too!
But if you’d like to go the buy-stuff route, there are some sweet Hike the Hudson Valley designs available on the site’s store on Spreadshirt.com. Each item purchased will generate $5 for the Trail Conference. The rest goes to Spreadshirt for custom-printing and shipping your order on-demand. (I chose this vendor because they have some nice moisture-wicking stuff, and hikers are a sweaty bunch. No offense.)
A couple of people have asked me what those clusters of rectangles represent, on either side of the words “Hike the Hudson Valley.” Do you know? I think you know. You’re a hiker! You know. I’m not even going to say it, since you definitely know.
Okay, okay, they’re the blaze configurations for “Start of trail” and “End of trail.” (You already knew that, but I just wanted to point it out in case anyone is reading over your shoulder.)
Nobody has ever asked me for a fashion recommendation, but if you’re thinking about picking up some new threads, you couldn’t go wrong with the silver moisture-wicking Hike the Hudson Valley shirt with the Fire Tower Sunset design. (The gray in women’s and kid’s cuts is pretty snazzy, too.) You can be twinsies with some of your favorite hiking destinations!
It’s so comfy, you can wear it for several days in a row (with appropriately relaxed hygiene standards). If you start to stink, nobody should be getting close enough to find out how bad you smell anyway! (If you need a bright side to the pandemic, I’m afraid that’s as close as we’re going to get.)
All designs have also been specially hiker-calibrated to fit between backpack straps.
I’ve purchased a bunch of Hike the Hudson Valley stuff since opening the shop on Spreadshirt.com, largely because I wanted to make sure that it was good before other people bought any of it (and also because my old Tom Petty concert T-shirts were starting to turn yellow). Verdict: Spreadshirt does a great job.
Some samples:
Spreadshirt’s customer service has also been excellent. I bought my dad (you may remember him from such trail guides as Great Swamp and Mt. Tammany) a Hike the Hudson Valley water bottle, and it had a small printing mistake that he didn’t even notice. Do you see it?
The circle isn’t perfect at the top – it’s a little blotchy. I sent that picture to Spreadshirt’s customer service, and they immediately sent Dad another bottle at no cost, which came out perfectly and arrived in just a few days.
So that’s that! I’m psyched about these designs and the quality of the gear from Spreadshirt, and think it’d be awesome if other local hiking folks enjoyed them, too. And if we can do a good thing together and donate a nice chunk of change to the Trail Conference, well, that will put some M&Ms in all of our GORP.
Happy adventuring and look sharp out there, all!