When taking a serious trip into the back country you always want to make sure that you have the best gear that you can afford at your disposable.
Take the time to research your options and, above all else, DO NOT buy anything made by World Famous. I have never seen worse crap available from any company, ever, at any price point.
During my recent trip to Havasu Falls, everybody brought gear that we shared. Everything worked out perfectly, except for everything made by World Famous. Lucky for us, nothing we had relied on was made by this crappy brand.
Here are our experiences:
Tarp
At the last minute, we checked the weather and found out that we looking at some rain. One of the guys picked up a World Famous Tarp, which didn’t even last long enough to withstand the process of hanging it as a shelter. The “grommets”, and I use the term loosely, were simply pressed into the plastic. The weight of the tarp was too much for the grommets. Also, the tarp was a hexagonal shape, implying to me that it may have been intended as a groundsheet, but if that was the case, why not label the packaging as “Groundsheet” instead of “Tarp”.
Rain Poncho
We were walking the trail on a beautiful 19C sunny afternoon when we faced a sudden shower. I was carrying the electronics for the group in my pack so one of the guys offer me his World Famous emergency poncho. It lasted about 10 seconds until the first tiny twig ripped the poncho to shreds.
Cook Set
The only things that a backpacking cook set needs to do for a backpacker are: be relatively lightweight, plates and mugs should hold heat, fry pan should disperse heat evenly, and don’t break. Needless to say, none of these things happened. The net result was eating cold meals, drinking cold coffee, and almost dropping one of our meals when the fry pan handle broke off in my hand under minimal stress. The worst part was that we had to haul the crappy, heavy products out of the woods when we were done.
Even their site sucks. Its almost completely made in flash so it doesn’t work on iPhone or iPad, the two most convenient connections to the internet while I am traveling.
When I tried to complain about their garbage products I found that there is only a sales contact available on their website. There isn’t even a way to tell them that their products suck.
