Recreation is big business, and my move to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States showed me there is no limit to what people do.
I have always enjoyed the great outdoors, starting with fond memories of my parents packing up the family and tent camping in northern Ontario, Canada, during the summer. I learned how to pitch a tent, start a campfire, swim, and stargaze, got introduced to hiking and raspberry picking, and absorbed all the interpretative nature programs put on by the park rangers. It left such an indelible imprint on that young boy's character that I longed to be out in the north woods every summer, no matter where I lived. Today, I have the good fortune of calling northwest Montana home and am surrounded by mountains and forest year-round.
After spending many years in the eastern United States schooling and working in Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida, I migrated to the western United States following a job after the Great Recession of 09. I landed in the Pacific Northwest, Hood River, Oregon, to be specific. For someone who loved the outdoors, I thought I had landed in Paradise. I traveled down Interstate 84 westbound from Utah. Finally, I came into the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area (aka the Gorge), welcomed by Mt Hood, an 11,000-foot tall, snow-capped marshmallow of a mountain. What a spectacle indeed!
The Columbia River Gorge (aka Gorge) is a stunning, 80-mile-long river gorge that runs eastward, starting near Portland, Oregon, to The Dalles, Oregon. The river is the boundary between Washington State to the north and Oregon to the south. Mt St Helens (yes, the infamous volcano that erupted in 1980), Mt Adams, and Mt Hood, though not in the Gorge, are often visible and are the constant, quiet guardians overseeing the Columbia River. A massive flood occurred when an ancient ice-age lake, Lake Missoula, broke free two states to the east in present-day Montana and carved out the Gorge.
What it left behind defies description. The narrow Gorge is one of the few sea-level crossings through the Cascade Mountain range. The western end gets enough rain to be a temperate rainforest. In contrast, the eastern end can count its annual precipitation in single digits. Within this short distance is a fairy tale landscape of waterfalls, craggy cliffs, verdant forest, high altitude desert, rushing rivers, a 10,000-year heritage of four Tribal Nations (yes, you read that right), fertile soils, stunning wildflowers, and the mighty Columbia River, a river of such mammoth proportions that its watershed is about the size of France.
As much as I loved the outdoors, I was an amateur compared to what I encountered in the Gorge. It is a four-season recreation area. Examples include windsurfing, kiteboarding, whitewater rafting, rafting, kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking, road biking, mountain climbing, bouldering, hiking, trail running, backpacking, horseback riding, parasailing, hang gliding, geocaching, swimming, slacklining, camping, ziplining, golfing, downhill skiing, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, birding, fishing, boating, and wildlife viewing.
The cost of equipment could be a substantial investment. According to Kitty Hawk Kiteboarding (khkkiteboarding.com), you'll need these essential items listed below to start kiteboarding. The following is a rough estimate of the cost for the things to give you an idea of the investment required:
kiteboarding kite ($900 - $2,100)
kiteboarding board ($400 - $1,000)
kite control bar and lines ($250 - $600)
harness ($150 - $300)
Initial investment total estimated at $1700 to $4000. Plus, depending on the wind where you will be kiteboarding, you may also need to invest in a wetsuit, booties, lifejacket, and a helmet.
Let's add in mountain biking. DIY Mountain Bike (diymountainbike.com) estimates a middle-range price to get into the sport safely at $4872, which includes the bike, helmet, gloves, hybrid pedals, mountain biking shoes, trail light, and hydration pack. Top-of-the-line equipment could cost you upwards of $30,000.
That covers at least two spring, summer, and fall outdoor activities. How about downhill skiing at Mt Hood for the winter season? Newtoski.com says you will need skis, boots, poles, a jacket and pants, gloves, goggles, and a helmet. They estimated the starting cost for all of these in 2020 to be $1,000 or more. Add in ski passes and lift tickets for the season, and the price quickly climbs closer to $2,000.
An approximate price tag for three outdoor activities (kiteboarding, mountain biking, and skiing) is $8,572 to $10,872. Yes, there are ways of getting this cost down, but it provides a first look at how expensive it can be to recreate.
And recreation is big business! Statista.com reports that sporting goods store sales in the U.S. are approximately $45 billion annually, accounting for 32.5% of the world's market share. The federal U.S. data in 2019 reported that the outdoor recreation economy was 2.1% of the US Gross Domestic Product, or $459.8 billion.
Okay, so my $500 hybrid bike and an assortment of old camping equipment and hiking boots looked so, well, paltry compared to the $800 Prevelo Zulu Two Heir bike, complete with pink ribbons and a bell that sounded like something from a kid's Disney movie, that passed me one day on an off-road trail ridden by an 8-year old girl. I had met my match. The message was loud and clear: Go big or go home.
This story was originally published on August 5, 2021.
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Next week - A new chapter in Recreation Gone Wild.
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