Backcountry is the place to buy the highest quality outdoor gear. Brands include Yakima, Perception, Patagonia, The North Face, Oakley, Harmony, Werner, Giro, Marmot, Kelty, Paha Que, Arc'teryx, Beal, ACR, Black Diamond, and *many* others, for sports like climbing,camping, hiking, kayaking, snowboarding and skiing. The Backcountry Outlet is accessed on the same website (see the tabs at the top of the pages) and features sales and closeouts with prices thatare up to 70% off. Like Sierra Trading Post (see below), the Backcountry Outlet selection is constantly changing, but it is always worthwhile to see what is offered here on sale before shopping elsewhere. Website design is fine except an annoying slidedown that sometimes appears, but which may be helpful since is inviting the shopper to an online chat with a service rep to help you make a selection. Shipping is usually very fast, and often free for a minimum purchase. Customer service is excellent. Backcountry is the daddy website for afamily of speciality websites including Dogfunk, Tramdock, and Steep and Cheap. Dogfunk specializes in snowboarding gear. Tramdock is for snow skiing gear. Steep and Cheap sells one product at a time, andusually at an excellent value, their motto being "One killer gear deal, one item at a time until it'sgone." One can sign up to receive a daily email from Steep and Cheap showing the current product being sold, but this is often outdated since popular items can sell out in hours. A feature of the Backcountry family of websites is the large distinctive search bar at the top of every page. Another characteristic is that many of the descriptions, especially for the Dogfunk, Tramdock, and Steep and Cheap websites, appear to be written by snowdudes who write like they talk. Like most of the merchants in this category, Backcountry, Dogfunk, and Tramdock have an excellent rating with Epinions (Steep and Cheap is not rated).

Moosejaw is an outfitter for extreme, and not so extreme, sports, and carries a large variety of clothing, gear, footwear. Their selection probably exceeds that of Backcountry, a main competitor. It may take a few minutes of browsing their website to realize that scope of their huge inventory of products. Click on a product link and you might think that there's no description for the item until you realize that the middle gray bar provides all the additional details such as product info, sizing, customer reviews, and related gear. Once this is realized, you see the benefits of this method to removepage clutter.Category and search displays have the convenient feature of allowing one to choose how many products to display on one page - between 9 and 36, an excellent feature, but it would be better ifit allowed even more products to be displayed on one page. Pricing on items is usually near or at list for the premium brands which are not often discounted such as The North Face, Arc'teryx, Marmot, Go Lite, Patagonia, etc, but they make up for it somewhat by offering free shipping on a low minimum, currently at $49. Unlike the distinctive large search bar in the Backcountry family of websites, Moosejaw has a tiny one in the middle of their large pager header, and it looks to be a size 8 font when typing.

Cabela's is one of the largest outfitters in the world, and they have an online presence to match. They have a wide selection of hunting, fishing, camping, and boating gear, although they are probably best known as the premier flyfishing outfitter since that was how the business startedover 40 years ago. Unlike most outfitters, they stock a good selection of women's and children's clothing and accessories, too. A good feature is product comparison charts in the Shopping Tools menu which displays all items in a category side by side to make comparison easy.  Shipping costs are generally based on order total and range from $4 up to $14 standard, with express and overnight services available for a reasonable cost. Recently Cabela's has begun offering a unique service as a real estate broker for "trophy properties," ones which would appeal to sportsmen and outdoors enthusiasts, such as ranches, large tracts of land for hunting, land bordering lakes and streams for fishing, even ocean frontage, and not just in the US but also with listings in central America, Africa, and Canada. In addition, Cabela's has a travel service for outdoor adventures - hunting and fishing trips - and has a corporate outfitter service, with customized clothes, luggage, and gifts, too.

REI sells quality gear and apparel for camping, hiking, cycling, paddling, climbing, snow sports, travel and cross training. They also have one of the best selections of accessories for these sports, like a full selection of car carriers by Yakima and Thule and GPS receivers by Garmin. All REI products are backed by a 100% guarantee. It is one of the most popular sporting good distributor for extreme outdoorsmen. Prices tend to be near list, but they often have sales with a good discount, plus there is an REI-Outlet section - see the top menu bar. Another nice feature is the REI Adventures section which offer a number of adventure travel packages, some which are excellent, and include hiking, cycling, paddling, rafting, climbing, cruises, and skiing trips. Website design is very good, shipping is very fast, and customer service is excellent.  They have a very good rebate program. Sales tax is assessed in the states in which REI has a retail outlet, which is about half the US. Like most of the merchants in this category, REI has an excellent rating with Epinions.