The North Face

Elite '08

102

352

Andrew C.

Portland, OR

They say repetition plays a large part in attraction and love. If your life revolves around frequenting the same establishments, eventually the seemingly everyday-girl who helps you at the bank, takes your food order or hands you new guitar strings and a receipt with a smile will appear cuter and cuter. This will continue over time until one day while exiting through the automatic doors you'll wonder what it would be like to spend a perfectly G-rated cold evening next to her on the couch in low lighting, making use of the strings you bought and talking.

This is in many ways is how The North Face appears to me.

My SoCal upbringing left me with many a satirical garment like this: http://www.mixunit.com... and as a result I always wrote North Face clothing off as "too mountain" for me to check into the prices of, let alone bother browsing at all. I'm not the kind of guy to wear hiking boots around city streets. It's just overkill.

Then it came to me, like a road-trip cross country game of identifying different state license plates in exchange for "two-hits" planted on the upper arms of friends. I started seeing that peculiar little logo everywhere. Mostly on the left breast and right shoulder blade of passersby of course.

I could be entirely incorrect but it seems like somewhere along the line the designers at The North Face decided that warm, comfortable and somewhat minimalistically (new word!) designed jackets shouldn't only be restricted to elevations above 1000'.

It's just too bad I don't quite have an extra $400+ laying around in my bill fold to floss the undeniable style of "The Citizen" jacket around PDX.* http://mirror.altrec.c...

If I did though, it would be on. I just might sit with that jacket on my couch, in low lighting, playing it songs and talking....to....myself.

*If anyone would like to purchase this jacket for me, or has an "in" at North Face, my birthday is July 28th and I just might love you forever after. I'm 6'1 so size L please, and preferably black. Thanks in advance.

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Elite '08

732

397

Laura N.

Portland, OR

The way I feel when I walk into The North Face is probably the way Britney Spears feels when she stumbles upon a "Mommy of the Year" award ceremony:   It is the mecca of all things great that I will never be able to achieve...nor care to seriously pursue.  

Yet, like Britney, I like to pretend. So I make sure to keep up appearances by perusing The North Face every month or so - randomly purchasing articles of unnecessary clothing that would allude to the fact that I participate in activities that would necessitate something called an "Apex Cayenne Thin Air Spectra Multi Anti-Fog SOD Triclimate Jacket."

Thorough a variation of skill (or lack there of) and monetary restrictions, I really don't neeeeeed anything in here. My adventuring days are unfortunately on hold for the moment...or next 20 years.

But every so often when the adventure bug is yelling exceptionally loud, I'll step inside and allow myself to dream about starring in a Warren Miller film, or backpacking through the Himalayas, or taking a Chadar Ice Trek, or an Icelandic Climbing adventure...or other various activities in, say, Trango, or Greenland, or Shishapangma.

When the bug bites - this is my first stop.

My North Face backpack has outlasted a 6 month trip around the world and three backpacking trips covering both northern and southern Europe and Asia.  You'll pay a heavy load, but the quality will seemingly last you forever.

And what a better excuse to go star in that Warren Miller film than all your cool new gear, man?!?

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