Pacific Northwest raised, still figuring out gear the hard way so you don't have to.
I'm Ian Freng. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, which means the outdoors wasn't a hobby I picked up — it was just what there was to do. Rain, mud, trailheads, lakes, mountains an hour from the driveway. Gear piled in the garage and weekends that revolved around whatever season it was. That has been going on for 23 years now, and it is the reason this site exists.
I've backpacked the Eastern Sierras and the trails around Snoqualmie more times than I can count, and snowboarded more winters than not. I've pulled halibut out of the water in Alaska, chased salmon runs in Washington, and fished for trout in the Mammoth and Sierra backcountry. I hunt. I drive a 2001 Toyota 4Runner that has been everywhere it probably shouldn't have, and a 2018 Subaru Crosstrek for the trips that need better gas mileage and less drama. I'm an avid solar enthusiast — if it can run off a panel and a battery bank instead of a generator, I'm interested.
I golf too — as long as I've done everything else, and still badly. The one thing on this site I have barely touched is paddleboarding, and I say so on the How We Research page. That page also draws a line I think matters: knowing an activity is not the same as having tested a particular product. Knowing which parts of a site to trust is worth more than being told to trust all of it.
Gear for the Weekend started because I got tired of gear "reviews" that were obviously written by someone who had never touched the product, ranking things off spec sheets and star counts. The irony is not lost on me that an early version of this site did some of that itself — thousands of invented ratings and prices, since deleted. What's here now is honest research, clearly labelled as research, with my own experience marked where it applies.
This site runs on affiliate partnerships, including Amazon Associates and Impact partner programs, which means I may earn a commission if you buy something through a link here, at no extra cost to you. That never changes what gets recommended. Found something wrong? Tell me and I'll fix it.
Last updated August 2026.