Gear Hut

Gear Hut is a consignment shop located in Reno that focuses on camping, hiking, climbing, skiing, paddling, and other outdoor gear. Rusty and Leah, the owners of Gear Hut, are outdoor enthusiasts who are from the east coast but fell in love with the west and the accessibility to the outdoors that Reno offers. After road tripping for two years across the United States, Rusty and Leah saw that used gear and consignment stores were able to survive in much smaller mountain towns than Reno.

“With all the recreation options around Reno, it only made sense to start Gear Hut here when we made this city our home.”  

Their primary sustainability goal is to ensure that well-designed outdoor items are completely utilized throughout their entire product life. Rusty and Leah recognize that people tend to upgrade or toss out products that are in good condition but are an older model. In order to prevent these items from ending up in the landfill, Gear Hut provides a low-stress way for their consigners to pass this outdoor equipment to future users without the hassle of listing it on websites like Craigslist or eBay. 

Their secondary goal for Gear Hut is to provide more people with the opportunity to recreate outdoors. Outdoor equipment can be very expensive, so with a used outdoors equipment store, these items are made more affordable and allow for more people to get outside and partake in activities like climbing, skiing, and camping. Leah and Rusty’s motto is to strive for “recycled adventures” that enable people to recreate outdoors without having to purchase new equipment.

Rusty and Leah have seen the impact of their store in more ways than one. By encouraging people to purchase gently used gear instead of buying new, they have been able to promote the importance of using equipment for as long as it lasts and keeping it out of the landfill. Additionally, Gear Hut has been able to fill a used-outdoor-equipment-store-shaped hole in Reno – as a city with some of the best access to public lands in the United States, the arrival of a used gear store like Gear Hut has been long overdue.  

So how do you make a difference in the environment as an individual or business? Rusty’s advice is this:

 “Every little bit counts! So start small… it will make a difference and be noted by your community. Something as simple as changing to email receipts or asking if folks NEED a bag instead of instantly providing it can limit the amount of trash in our environment.”

Learn more about Gear Hut at https://www.gearhutreno.com/ and check out their store in Reno at 1245 S Wells Avenue, Suite 101.

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