October 2018. Dolly Sods, West Virginia. It’s about 38 degrees, the sky is the color of a bruised plum, and it is absolutely dumping rain. I’m huddled inside a “highly rated” budget tent I bought because some glossy outdoor magazine told me it was the ‘best value of the year.’ Within two hours, the floor was a sponge. By midnight, I was bailing out water with a titanium mug. I spent $140 to be shivering and miserable because I trusted a review written by someone who probably tested the tent in a sunny backyard in Boulder.
That was the night I stopped reading professional gear guides and started watching outdoor gear review luke. If you’ve spent any time on the gear-side of YouTube, you know who I’m talking about. Luke, the guy behind The Outdoor Gear Review (TOGR). He’s usually standing in a swamp or a forest, looking slightly tired, telling you why a $400 jacket is actually a piece of junk. It’s glorious.
Most gear reviews are just long-form commercials
The problem with the outdoor industry is that it’s a giant circle-jerk of affiliate links and free samples. I know people will disagree with me on this, and they’ll say that journalists have ethics, but come on. If a company sends you a $600 tent for free, are you really going to tell your audience it’s a leaky coffin? Maybe. But probably not. You’ll say it has ‘minor quirks.’
Luke doesn’t do that. He buys most of his own stuff. Or he did for a long time—I think he accepts some stuff now, but he still tears it apart. I remember watching him review a specific Onetigris tent. He didn’t just set it up; he lived in it during a storm that would make most people call for a rescue. He pointed out the stitching. He showed the condensation. He didn’t use marketing words like ‘breathable’ or ‘innovative.’ He just said it was wet.
Most reviewers treat gear like a fashion show. Luke treats it like a survival tool. There is a massive difference.
I might be wrong about this, but I honestly think 90% of the people writing gear reviews haven’t spent more than two consecutive nights in the backcountry in the last three years. They go out for a photo shoot, take some crisp shots of a clean backpack against a sunset, and call it a ‘field test.’ It’s a total lie. Luke’s gear is always dirty. His truck is messy. He looks like he actually sleeps on the ground, which is surprisingly rare in this niche.
The part where I admit I was a gear snob
I used to think that if it wasn’t sold at REI and didn’t cost at least three paychecks, it was garbage. I was completely wrong. I had this weird elitism about brands like Arc’teryx and Nemo. Speaking of which—I refuse to buy anything from Nemo anymore. I don’t care how many awards their tents win; their logo looks like a corporate tech startup that sells HR software, and it irritates me every time I see it. It’s a stupid, irrational reason to hate a brand, but I can’t help it.
Anyway, Luke broke that snobbery for me. He’ll review stuff from Amazon or brands you’ve never heard of, like Pomoly or some random surplus gear. He showed me that a $50 tarp and some decent stakes are often better than a $500 ultralight tent that rips if you look at it funny. He’s the reason I started looking at military surplus stuff again. It’s heavy, sure, but it doesn’t break when you’re ten miles from the trailhead.
What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. He shifted my focus from ‘how much does this weigh’ to ‘will this actually keep me alive.’ In my quest to be an ultralight hiker, I had sacrificed safety for a lower base weight. I was carrying a 10lb pack but I was constantly cold and wet. Luke’s channel is a reminder that being ‘light’ is useless if you’re miserable.
Testing things until they actually break
I’ve tracked my own gear failures over the last five years. I’ve had 12 major pieces of kit fail on me—boots delaminating, zippers catching, sleeping pads leaking. Out of everything I currently own, the four items I bought specifically because of a TOGR ‘long-term’ update are the only ones that haven’t failed.
- My stove (a simple canister top) has survived 42 trips.
- My rain shell (which Luke correctly identified as ‘ugly but waterproof’) has never wetted out.
- The budget sleep system I use for winter camping cost $120 total.
- A set of steel stakes that weigh a ton but never bend.
He does these ‘Price of Freedom’ videos where he just goes out and exists. No script, no fancy transitions. It’s just a guy in a hammock talking about life. It’s almost therapeutic. It’s like a sandpaper hug for your soul. (That’s a weird way to put it, but if you’ve heard his voice, you know it’s weirdly soothing despite the ruggedness.)
A mini-rant about The North Face
I need to get this off my chest: The North Face has become a lifestyle brand for people who commute to office jobs in Subarus and I hate it. Their high-end Summit Series stuff is still okay, I guess, but the rest of it? It’s basically fast fashion for people who want to look like they hike. I saw a North Face ‘rain jacket’ the other day that didn’t even have pit zips and cost $200. Absolute garbage. Luke would probably call it a ‘glorified trash bag,’ and he’d be right. I’ve seen better quality at Costco for a quarter of the price. There, I said it.
The industry is obsessed with ‘newness.’ Every year there’s a new ‘paradigm-shifting’ fabric that is 2% lighter and 50% more expensive. Luke is one of the few people who will say, “Hey, the 2015 version of this was actually better, don’t buy the new one.” That kind of honesty is expensive for a creator to have because it pisses off the brands. But it’s why his comments section isn’t full of bots—it’s full of people who have been burned by bad gear.
Why his ‘failures’ are the best part
My favorite videos of his aren’t the ones where everything goes right. It’s when he gets a piece of gear that is absolute trash and he has to figure out how to survive the night anyway. He doesn’t edit out the struggle. If a stove won’t light in the wind, he shows you the struggle of trying to block the breeze with his boots.
That’s real life. Real life isn’t a 4k drone shot of a perfectly pitched tent. Real life is trying to find a flat spot in the dark while your fingers are too numb to tie a knot. Most reviewers act like experts who never make mistakes. Luke acts like a guy who has made every mistake and is trying to help you avoid them.
I don’t agree with everything he says. He has a weird obsession with certain types of knives that I find totally unnecessary for 99% of hikers. I think he carries too much gear sometimes. But I don’t need to agree with him to trust him. I trust his process. I trust that he’s actually out there in the mud while I’m sitting on my couch.
If you’re about to drop $300 on a new backpack or a pair of boots, go find his video on it first. If he hasn’t reviewed it, honestly, I’d be skeptical about buying it. He’s the closest thing we have to a BS-meter in the outdoor world.
I often wonder if he ever gets tired of it. Sleeping in the rain for the 500th time just to tell people a tent leaks. I hope not. We need more people who are willing to get wet so we can stay dry.
Go watch his stuff. Or don’t. But don’t come crying to me when your ‘award-winning’ ultralight tent turns into a bathtub in West Virginia.
