Rant: A ranger at Shenandoah talked me out of the $200 tent I was about to buy
Stopped at the Dickey Ridge visitor center two weeks ago and got chatting with a ranger named Dana about my leaky old dome tent. She asked where I actually camp and I said mostly state parks within two hours of Richmond, and she just nodded and said the seam tape on the cheap tent was the same as the fancy one, so save the money and spend it on a better pad. That hit different because I'd been about to drop $200 on a label instead of fixing the real problem, which was sleeping cold on a 1 inch foam pad every trip. Has anyone else had a ranger or backcountry worker steer them somewhere totally different than they planned?