A line graph showing the hipness of my sunglasses over the years would look like the jagged silhouette of the Teton Range. Peaks and valleys jutting up and shooting down, marking my level of caring, fashion sense or in most cases my singleness and desire to get a girlfriend at the time.
Review by Shaun Matusewicz
In junior high my sunglasses were very hip (you can see this page if you want to buy those), or at least I thought so. Massive futuristic looking things from Oakley that looked like Marty from Back to the Future and Arnold from the Terminator got together and decided to have an inbreed sunglasses-love-child.
It was not a good time in my sunglass life.
Then came High School and a steady girlfriend. Suddenly I cared (slightly) less about being cool. I discovered the snowboard focused styling of Spy and had a winner for a while. These little guys carried me most of the way through college.
My Mariana Trench of coolness, my ultimate low had to be while I lived in New York. Take a mountain man and put him in the big city and weird things are going to happen. Let’s forget about this time altogether. Please.
I know this is starting to get long and you’re sitting there thinking, man I just came here for a sunglasses review, not a look at your sad, pathetic attempts to be cool. But trust me, we are getting there and it will all tie together with a nice bow at the end.
Enter the Hobie Baja. I’ve been out of school for a while and have a steady lady. My sunglass needs have stabilized. Fashion, yes. Functionality, yes. Price, yes. But none of them outweighs the other. I am at sunglass equilibrium.
And this is where the Hobie Baja delivers. It is a good looking sunglass for adults. While pricy at $190, it is made of real Borsilicate glass. I have never worn a pair of sunglasses with this amount of optical clarity. Things look amazing, even through my peripheral vision.
The weight is also something to behold. With 1.8mm glass lenses, it is heavier than most glasses I have worn, but normal for “real glass” sunglasses. This means I leave them at home for expeditions, but can’t wait to throw them back on when I return.
This way somehow feels more adult, like I have grown up out of robot sunglasses days and have now joined the ranks of real grownups. But, and this is the real point here, without sacrificing coolness. In my line graph of sunglass coolness, the Hobie Baja is the highpoint, the Grand Teton of the range.
The Bottom Line: If you need a good-looking pair of sunglasses for town that perform exceptionally well and are not afford to drop a little coin, the Hobie Baja is for you. Your coolness chart and your vision will thank me.
Shaun Matusewicz is a Senior Correspondent for The Zine.
In the vertical world, quality gear is as important as good weather or the right partner. At the Climbing Zine, we review gear that we put to the test in our personal climbing pursuits, over months of use. If we like it we’ll tell you, and if we don’t we’ll tell you. That’s our policy…If you have gear for us to consider for a review please contact us at luke@climbingzine.com.
About us: The Climbing Zine was started in 2010 by Al Smith III and Luke Mehall. It continues to the day with the mission of representing the true essence of climbing. Our crown jewel is our printed version, but we also do the interweb thing, and Kindle. You can now subscribe to The Climbing Zine as well!
We have also published two books: The Great American Dirtbags and Climbing Out of Bed, both written by publisher, Luke Mehall.