Outdoor Club Equipment

According to an early 2010 price list for a local outdoor gear rental firm, one full size (6 ft) Thermarest insulating pad would cost you as much as $30 for a weekend with a $100 deposit, a 2 person tent $39 with a $200 deposit, a one burner stove $25 with a $100 deposit.

Outdoor Club membership is $15 for 365 days. Members who pay an additional $15 (for 365 days) rental fee along with their membership pay no rentals cost and can use club equipment with refundable cleaning and late fee deposits (if you return the gear clean, dry, in good condition and on time you get a refund). Members who do not pay the yearly fee can rent equipment at about half the price of a local rental company chosen by the club officers.

We do not rent equipment for private trips, only for club events.

If you do not return an item, or return it in unrentable condition, you must replace it at full retail value.

Current members only rental costs (for members without the extra members rental fee paid)/ replacement values are:

A 6' long thermarest $15 / $115

An insulating foam pad $10 /$20

A two burner stove $10 / $95

Backpack $15 / $ 215

2 person tent $15 / market value (summer 2010 - $190)

6 or 8 person tent $20 / market value (summer 2010 - $520 to $820)

lantern $10 / $70

dining canopy $15 / $200

ice chest $15 / $70

Garcia bear resistant food container $15 / $80

griddles, gaiters, fanny packs, dry bags, pop-up chairs, misc. extras $5 / market value

Life jackets and paddles are included in the trip price for our kayaking trips. Dry bags are included in the trip price for our kayak overnight trips.

Bear resistant Garcia food storage containers are usually included in the trip price for our backpack trips. The club owns enough canisters for a small group, or for each in a large group to prepack their food/toiletries in advance to get an idea of whether they need to rent more at the park.

We don't have any good sleeping bags or winter boots to rent, but any local outfitters we know of that do are listed at: Snow or rain camp must-haves.

Refundable fees include $20 late fee (described in detail in the Outdoor Club Sample Rental Agreement), $50 cleaning deposit for tents, stoves and dining canopies, and $10 cleaning deposit (and mantle replacement if needed) for all other items. Again, if you return the gear clean, dry, in good condition and on time you get a refund of these deposits.

If you intend to rent from us it will go much faster if you read Outdoor Club Sample Rental Agreement for details.

We have lanterns and stoves in backpack and basecamp sizes,

and insulated sleeping pads like this combo of a Thermarest on top of a plain insulating pad. It is never warm enough, at any time of the year, to sleep on just an air mattress (the kind you float on in a pool). If you want to bring an air mattress to make the ground softer, bring an insulating pad to put on top of it.

If you put your insulating pad on top of a pop-up chair or folding chair you'll be noticably warmer sitting around the campsite, as in the photo below:

All our tents are dome shaped with full rain flies that go all the way down the outside to effectively shed rain and snow. In the first photo below of a backpacking campsite at Sunrise, on the left is one of three Walrus two-person tents we own. We also have REI two-person Half Dome tents.

Photos below are of our Cabela eight-person tents. These are tall enough for people to stand up inside of. On a winter trip 4 to 6 people should probably be all that share one so there is more room for potentially wet gear. If you borrow one from us you might want to look at How to pitch the Cabela eight-person tent

For pictures of tents to NOT take on our trips scroll down to the bottom of Camping Blunders

We also have gaiters, maps (many of which are at the De Anza library, available for student check-out), first-aid kits, dining canopies (including four 10' x 10' 'easy-ups'), backpacks, kayaks, life-jackets, dry bags, water-purifying pumps, Garcia backpacker's food canisters, folding chairs, ice chests, fanny packs, a volleyball net and ball, two silverstone griddles the size to put on a two-burner stove, two ice chests, Thermarest chair frames suitable for backpacking, a snowshovel, tarps, and family band two-way radios.

The DSU (Disabled Students Unlimited) club got a grant thru the student body to buy ten tandem (two- or one-person) kayaks, paddles, lifejackets and a trailer.

These are not the kind of kayaks you need to know how to do an Eskimo roll if they tip over, but they are also not the sit-on-top kind okay for ocean use. They are for relatively flat water lake or reservoir use, not rivers or oceans.

The college owns the ten tandem kayaks, but DSU has control of them. Any club can use them by setting it up with DSU advisor Tom Beggs (Adaptive P.E.) For all the info on their use go to: Kayaks (and trailer) use

The Outdoor Club is a completely volunteer organization, neither the officers nor the advisor are paid. As a result you will not get the same "service" from us as from a professional group. We do not have the time to return phone calls or emails from people asking questions that they could have found the answers to by simply looking through this website. We can't always find a way to sign up people who can't make it to our regular meetings, to a class when we are there, or to a table we have on campus. People who wait until the last minute to sign up are sometimes left out.

We only have one rental time for each trip and only one return time for a full refund.

For details about club events and how to find us to pay for a membership, sign up for events or volunteer, go to:

Outdoor Club Coming Attractions