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Product news, reviews, and must-have deals.
REI runs two big sales a year and the Labor Day event is where the co-op clears summer stock before winter inventory needs the shelf space. That means tents, sleeping pads, camp chairs, and trail shoes get cut hardest just in time to enjoy the tail end of warm weather. The Labor Day sale runs through September 7, and REI members who spend $50 or more also earn a $30 single-use promo card during the same window. I went through roughly 2,500 discounted items and pulled the size runs on every pair of shoes below, because a 50 percent markdown on a shoe that only exists in a men’s 9.5 isn’t a deal, it’s a leftover.
A suspended, rocking camp chair for $80 off, in five colors
The NEMO Stargaze Evo-X at $99.99 hangs the seat from a frame so the whole chair swings and reclines without you doing anything, which is a different experience from sitting in a folding quad chair, and it usually costs $179.95. All five colorways are live at this price. NEMO rates it to 300 pounds and it packs into its own carry bag.
The current Clifton, not last year’s model, under $100 in both men’s and women’s
You won’t typically find current-generation HOKA Clifton 10 under $100 while it’s still the model on the store shelves. The men’s version has 30 sizes live and the women’s Clifton 10 has 34, so this is a real size run rather than a picked-over one. Both are $99.83, down from $155.
The standard 32-ounce Hydro Flask, in the two colors REI marked down
Hydro Flask discounts are usually colorway-specific, and this one is no exception. The 32-ounce Wide-Mouth with the Flex Cap is $30.73 instead of $44.95, but only two colors are still live at that price, so pick before you deliberate. This is the plain vacuum-insulated bottle with the loop lid, not a straw or tumbler variant.
Two-way satellite texting and SOS for $100 off
The Garmin inReach Messenger is my wife’s go-to choice when venturing into a world without cellphone reception. It’s the stripped-down inReach, so you get two-way messaging, location sharing, and an SOS button routed to Garmin’s response center, without the maps and navigation of a Mini 2. Garmin rates the battery at up to 28 days in 10-minute tracking mode. A satellite subscription is required and sold separately, which is the part people forget to budget for.
A three-person tent with the footprint already in the box, $160 off
Tent footprints are the accessory everyone skips and then buys separately at full price, so the Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 including one at $239.99 does better than the $160 off suggests. It’s a freestanding three-person with two doors and two vestibules, which is the layout worth paying for if two people plus gear is the actual load. The two-person version is $209.99 if you never carry a third body.
Tents are the deepest cut in this sale. The Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 2 at $209.99 is 40 percent off with the footprint in the box, and the Coleman Skydome 4-Person at $142.49 is the least expensive tent here that sleeps four under a full rain fly.
Sleeping pads discount more reliably than bags do, and this year is no different. The Therm-a-Rest Z Lite Sol starts at $37.39, and the REI Co-op Magma 15 starting at $299.19 is the least expensive 15-degree down bag I turned up in the sale.
