Servicemen back from the war took their rapidly growing families into the woods on inexpensive family vacations. Outdoor companies like REI, founded in Seattle in 1938, began to sell lightweight and waterproof clothes and camping equipment, making it easier to camp, hike, and hunt. Hiking clubs like the Mountaineers in Washington State and the Mazamas in Oregon had been active since the end of the nineteenth century, but now the cognoscenti were joined by many more people who had a more casual but enduring connection to the outdoors. People came to the national forests to hike, bike, horseback
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