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Outdoor Adventure
The 8 Best Labor Day Deals on Gear That’s Made in the USA
03
Sep
Sep
Labor Day celebrates the social and economic achievements of the American worker. As the informal end of summer, it also marks a transition for seasonal inventories of clothing and outdoors gear, so there are lots of Labor Day deals. Here’s how you can save money while supporting American workers, the American economy, and buying high-quality American products.
Updated September 2: It’s Labor Day. We’ve checked all the deals and prices in our list. Many of these deals will likely expire late tonight.
If you buy through our links, we may earn an affiliate commission. This supports our mission to get more people active and outside. Learn more.
Mountain Safety Research produces all of the field water purification gear for the United States Army. That requires that the company maintain the most sophisticated water lab in the country, which it also uses to develop, test, and validate water filters for civilian consumers. The lab is so unique in its capability that other water filter brands actually contract out their own testing to MSR, while others include in their small print a requirement that customers must first pass water through an MSR filter if it’s to come out of their products as clean as they claim.
Unlike competitors, MSR also only produces filters that stop flowing water when they lose the ability to remove pathogens, so there’s no chance you’ll ever drink contaminated water if you use an MSR filter, which are all made right there in Seattle, under the same roof as that lab.
Our Pick: MSR Guardian Water Purifier
REI is including a bunch of MSR filters in this sale, all for 25 percent off. They’re all good, but a standout is the Guardian, a large filter capable of removing even chemicals and viruses from water, so is what you need if you’re planning a trip to the developing world.
Walk out of the water lab, through the water filter production line, and you’ll get to MSR’s stove factory. MSR is owned by the same parent company as Therm-a-Rest: Cascade Designs. All MSR stoves are made right there in Seattle, and every single one of them is subject to thorough testing by an actual American adult before they’re boxed and shipped to you. That doesn’t just mean they’ll work the first time you light one up, but also keep working even in cold weather, even at high elevations.
REI is offering 25 percent off all MSR liquid fuel stoves. Liquid fuels work much better than gas fuels in cold temperatures because you use a pump to create pressure within the canisters. Some models can also run on a variety of fuels, which makes them uniquely useful on international adventures where you may be unable to source fuel canisters.
Our Pick: MSR Whisperlite Universal Stove
The Whisperlite is the original liquid fuel backpacking stove, and still one of the highest performing options. It’s currently reduced from $200 to $150. Not bad for the last stove you’ll ever buy.
Probably the hardest thing to make in America right now is clothing. It’s incredibly difficult to compete on price with foreign sweatshops while complying with our country’s pay, benefits, safety, and ethical standards. It’s even harder to make technical clothing here because most fabric technologies are produced in those foreign sweatshops, and many of the brands that make those technologies only sell their wares in extremely large volumes.
It’s notable that NW Alpine has been making all its high-tech performance clothing in Oregon since Bill Amos founded the company in 2010. And while all of its fabrics aren’t American-sourced, its new range of Fortis base layers is. And those are 20 percent off until September 2.
Our Pick: NW Alpine Fortis Base Layers
The big innovation with Fortis is the incorporation of Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene fibers in its nylon-blend fabric. That means you get all the sweat-wicking properties of a lightweight base layer, but with a massive additional dose of abrasion resistance and longevity. They feel incredibly soft after a run through the washing machine and dryer, too.
Even though many tech fabrics are produced abroad, their underlying technologies are often developed in America. Forloh gets around the barrier to fabric technology access by hunting down the latest innovations while they’re still in the lab, signing exclusive rights to them for a few years, then working with American factories to develop the ability to use them.
The result is standout pieces that function in totally unique ways. The brand’s American-made rain gear? It has a higher moisture vapor transmission rate than anything else out there, plus a proprietary method for applying Durable Water Repellent coating that won’t wear off.
Forloh’s sale runs through September 3. Everything is 20 percent off.
Our Picks: Forloh Down Insulation Clothing and Men’s BTM Pro Pants for $207 ($259)
(The 20% discount is shown at checkout.) Forloh’s down insulation pieces are extremely breathable. The pants they designed just for me are also extraordinarily durable.
Cascade Designs is still privately owned by the families of the former Boeing engineers who founded Therm-A-Rest in 1972. And all Therm-a-Rest sleeping pads are still made in Seattle. Making stuff there is what enables the company to offer its famous lifetime warranty, which is remarkable for products that must remain airtight, while being dragged up mountains, down rivers, and through the woods.
REI is offering 25 percent off across all Therm-A-Rest sleeping pads. They’re all good, but if I had to pick some to highlight they’d be the NeoAir XTherm NXT, which remains the standard for mountaineers who need a reliable, highly insulated pad.
Our Pick: Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XTherm NXT Sleeping Pad
Born Outdoor Bedrolls Are 10% Off—With Code FALL10
I’ve been sleeping on a large Therm-a-Rest MondoKing 3D off and on this summer—inside a Born Outdoor Badger Bed 25 bedroll. It’s the brainchild of Army veteran Stuart Born, who wanted to create a more comfortable way to enjoy a night outdoors. The Badger Bed wraps an ultra-comfy sleeping pad inside a rugged shell, then uses that to house sheets and a down quilt, too.
The whole thing rolls up into a waterproof duffle bag, which is designed to be carried exposed on top of a 4×4 or in the bed of a pickup truck. That’s good, because these systems are massive. Unroll one, and you’ll find a water and a puncture-proof shell that wraps the pad on the bottom and sides. It also holds the quilt in place with toggles. Zip the water and wind-resistant-top sheet up, and you’ll be relatively protected from weather, while enjoying lots of room to roll around.
Our Pick: Badger Bed 25 Sierra Bedroll Bundle
Stuart and his family make Badger Beds just outside Boulder, Colorado, and they’re currently offering 10 percent off sitewide by entering the code FALL10 at checkout.
Bozeman, Montana-based GoFastCampers disrupted the camper space in 2017 when it brought to market the lightest, strongest, most affordable camper ever made. At the time it was the only camper that was safe to carry in the back of popular mid-size pickups like the Toyota Tacoma. And even on larger trucks, a GFC remains the only camper strong enough to stand up to washboard and wheeling. The company does all its manufacturing in Bozeman, offering full-time (with benefits) jobs that pay the highest starting salary of any manufacturer in the northern Rockies. And it only asks employees to work four-day weeks so they have time to use the free campers they receive as part of their compensation.
Early versions of the GFC proved incredibly popular, but the radically simple nature of the product caused some frustrations with parts like vents and latches. GFC listened to its customers and launched a new Pro model across its line of campers, bed caps, and rooftop tents earlier this year, while also reducing weight, increasing comfort, and adding even more strength. And now, it’s making those upgrades available to existing customers too, so they don’t have to buy a whole new camper to take advantage of improvements they asked for.
Parts like tent bodies, latches, lighting kits and more are on-sale through September 18th at 10 to 20 percent discounts.
Our Pick: Complete Upgrade Camper Upgrade Bundles
The real savings can be found in complete upgrade bundles, which are discounted as much as $914.
Having sweaty feet sucks. And the way to avoid that is by wearing merino wool socks. But unethical sweatshop labor and highly polluting international shipping suck even worse. Luckily, Darn Tough makes all its merino wool socks in Vermont.
REI is offering 25 percent off all Darn Tough socks through September 2nd. You can’t go wrong with any of them.
Our Pick: Darn Tough Crew Lightweight Socks
I’m a big fan of the mushrooms and pigs on the “truffle hog” casual sock pattern, which is reduced by $6 to $18 a pair.
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