Mountain Crossings

[Jack Tarlin]

I must disagree with folks who term Mountain Crossings "pricey."

When it comes to gear, their prices are right in line with other independent stores: Just about everything they sell (and they sell nothing but top-quality stuff) is sold at the Manufacturers Suggested Retail price, or in a few cases, just above it. They also always have items that are on sale. To suggest that they are highly over-priced or that they mark up stuff higher than other Outfitters (especially other A.T. outfitters) is simply not the case.

And when it comes to non-gear items, such as food, I'm afraid that a lot of folks are ignorant of how retail businesses operate. The reason that you can get a Lipton dinner for $1.19 at your local supermarket is because the company buys literally thousands of them at a time, pays less for them, and has them delivered thousands at a time by truck. A small store (like a convenience store or outfitter) buys Liptons several dozens at a time, and very often, this entails paying an employee for several hours while he drives many miles away to go buy them. In Mountain Crossings' case, it involves sending someone to Blairsville. In a place like Bluff Mountain Outfitters in Hot Springs, it means sending an employee all the way to Asheville every week. This involves a lot of time, trouble, and expense for the store.

What this means is that there's no way that items like food will cost the same at an outfitter's as they would at, say, your local Food Lion or Kroger's.
And when hikers see an item selling for $1.39 or $1.59 on the Trail that costs half a buck less at their local market, their first impulse is to think that they are being over-charged for the item.

This is not the case.

[Bad Co]

I have never met Winton nor have I ever been to his store but a salesperson at my business is also his salesperson and gave me his # to call and ask for advice before my trip.
The man spent nearly an hour on the phone with me answering all my questions and some I didn't think of.
never once did I feel rushed even though from the background noises one could tell the store was busy.
Being in a seasonal business myself I was very impressed with the attention I was given
Winton even offered to put my son and I up for the weekend for free so we could come down and get a feel for the trail and what they offered even gave me his personal # if I needed anything else.
I couldn't make it down there for the invite but you can bet we will be packing light and stopping in next month to tell him thanks and support his business
no business is perfect sometimes things fall through the cracks
most often in business you can do a thousand things right but you only here about what you did wrong

[Sidewinder]

I agree with Jack on MXings pricing, it's top quality gear. The food IMO isn't over priced either once you consider the convenience of it being right there and not having to hitch or drive into town. To spent $1.59 for a Lipton side dish or whatever is cheap, folks that's your dinner. I heard a couple of hikers complaining about spending 35¢ for a pack of noodles dinner, again that was their dinner.

[stranger]

I agree with the recent above posts. All I can say is try operating a high-end outfitters in the middle of f'ing nowhere, good luck staying in business! Even along the southern AT...

Mountain Crossings is not all that expensive, compared to other "on trail" outfitters. You cannot compare places like REI, EMS or Campmor to places like Mountain Crossings, the difference in terms of volume is hard to comprehend for a typical hiker.

For example, when I ran the pack department at Campmor, we would be able to force pack companies to drop their cost price because we promised to buy 2,000 units. Then we would sell the pack barely over cost, usually around 20% above what we paid for it. Often I would have friends at other shops call me up saying "you bastard, you are selling that pack at $99, and it cost's us $109 to buy it!" But we bought 2,000, and they were buying 25. It may be wrong ethically but it's also reality! Places like Mountain Crossings has to keep thier markup to industry standard, which is 42%.

I would also agree that nothing at Mountain Crossings is average, it's all above average to top end gear, with prices that match. You get what you pay for most of the time!

The bottom line is the reason why so many hikers complain about this place is because they start the trail inexperienced, with the wrong gear and stagger into Neels Gap 4-5 days later hating life and discover they had no idea of what they were getting into. Then buy a new pack, tent, spend $800 of their already unrealistic $1/mile budget, and feel ripped off.

Other hikers stroll into Mountain Crossings at 3pm on their second day, scarf down two hotdogs, buy a few food items and put in another 5 miles.

It's all relative

[High Life]

free hot dogs ! Nough said ..and the prices arent bad
oh and the folks that work there are super nice .. !!

[Rockhound]

I agree with Jack on MXings pricing, it's top quality gear. The food IMO isn't over priced either once you consider the convenience of it being right there and not having to hitch or drive into town. To spent $1.59 for a Lipton side dish or whatever is cheap, folks that's your dinner. I heard a couple of hikers complaining about spending 35¢ for a pack of noodles dinner, again that was their dinner.

I will agree with Sidewinder only because I could never,in good conscience, directly agree with Jack Tarlin.

[TickPicker]

I think I've posted this before but will post it again. Back a few months ago my best friend and I went back to hike Woody to Neels gap. When we were dropped off we discovered we had left our hiking sticks back in the carport. We started looking at what they had, actually looking for the cheapest there. A young man there politely asked us if we knew what we were looking at and did we need anything. I asked him if he had any hiking poles for rent relaying our story of leaving ours in the carport. He said they didn't rent but he'd go in the back and see what they had left in demo's. Someone in the back yelled they didn't have any demo's left. He went in the back and brought out a demo set of Leki's. That took care of one of us. Then he went up front and brought back a pair of Leki's and said......."Here use these, they're mine. Just bring em back safe." This guy had known us for a total of about 45 seconds. We of course brought them back safe and sound and would not have been able to complete our hike at that time. And this is the second time for me personally that this has happened. So even if I pay a few cents more than at walmart or REI online, these folks have earned my business. After all was said and done they didn't try to sell me anything..........

Steve