Our Gear/Resort Testing Policy:
All news organizations need to have equipment and services to review for their readers. And, bluntly, none of us can afford to go out and buy everything we test. At EasternSlopes.com, we receive goods and services in various ways. Some products we buy at retail; some, at discounted prices; and some are provided to us free of charge. Typically, products are provided on long-term loan to allow us a chance to fully test them and determine reliability; however, some of them aren’t worth returning, from the manufacturer’s perspective. Food (obviously!), clothing, and items of the sort often are “free”; they’re less than worthless after a season of use and abuse. A bicycle or a backpack, on the other hand, has a real value, and is typically returned when we’re done with it for the manufacturer to resell. However, from our perspective, it doesn’t matter how we receive an item; it matters how it performs. We put our lives on the line, literally, at times; if something is free but poor quality, why would we want it??? While we don’t put the source into each article, any reader can email us if they have a question as to how a particular product arrived on our doorstep, and we’ll be happy to provide that information. Our reputation is all we have to “sell” to you, the reader; we will never compromise that to make a manufacturer happy.
