by Bill Straka
A variety of paddlers test equipment on Pineview Reservoir near Ogden, Utah, on Day 0 of Outdoor Retailer.
I arrived in SLC a couple days before the OR Show to do a bit of climbing, hiking, and visiting with local friends. Temperatures were over 100F! The climbing in Big Cottonwood Canyon was done by driving to the base of the climb at dawn, climbing three pitches on the fantastic quartzite, then rappeling down in a race with the sun as its Death Ray Heat was creeping down the wall as the sun climbed over the ridge.
After the climb, I headed up the canyon to the cooler heights above 7,500 ft, then hiked several miles up to the crest of the ridge to the south, overlooking Little Cottonwood. Much cooler, with large patches of snow, and acres of gorgeous wildflowers in blues, purples, reds, pinks, yellows, oranges.
This morning, I took the shuttle out to the Open Air Session (the “green” way to go, of course), to get a view of hundreds (literally) of different types of watercraft – kayaks, sailboards, canoes, each with a myriad variety. In addition, there were a number of vendor booths displaying new (and old, but improved) products.
We were greeted at the entrance by Coleman, handing out tiny, pencil-sized pump-sprays of a natural insect repellent (yes, there were mosquitoes out, even at that altitude) and of a number 30SPF sunblock. Several companies introduced these pump-sprays a couple years ago for hand sanitizers, and now sunblock and insect repellent. They are small enough to stick in a pocket for a day hike, and appear to be as effective as the large containers of the same products.
I was there mostly for the rock climbing session, having understood that there would be demos of rock gear. Well, it turned out to be a diversion for the climbers, but shoes, harnesses, and helmets were provided. The climbing was pretty good on the quartzite in Ogden Canyon, plus we could watch the whitewater demos of new kayaks shooting the Class IV stream.
Before I headed down to the rock session, I ran into the MacLeay crowd, Dave, Alicia, and their two kids. Since I had already visited a couple booths with new products, I led Alicia over to introduce her, which means we will get to test some products.
DeLorme's new PN-30 GPS receiver
One of the products was DeLorme’s new version 8 of Topo USA, along with their PN-40 and just introduced PN-30 GPS receivers. Both are major upgrades of the PN-20 with a much faster processor that overcomes most of the complaints I had about the PN-20. The PN-30 is primarily a much faster PN-20, while the PN-40 adds a barometric altimeter (handled much better than Garmin’s barometric altimeters, allowing for example shutting off the barometer to reduce battery drain) and a flux-gate compass.
Pelican has long been known for their waterproof products, mainly flashlights and cases. I have had several Pelican camera cases (I used one for transporting all my camera gear for the Africa trip that is written up in Trailspace's Articles site) and a couple of their smaller cases. Among the new ones (for those who just can’t leave your iPod behind) is a completely waterproof and immersible iPod case with a waterproof jack that allows you to listen to your iPod (or MP3) when running whitewater or sailboarding. Pelican has also introduced some new headlamps, which we may get to test out. Their headlamps are immersible (some models designed for scuba).
Magellan had their usual geocaching contest, with three courses of increasing difficulty, the main purpose of which was to demonstrate the improved versions of the Triton series (including the eXplorist-sized version). It took me a few minutes (with no instruction) to get the hang of the new touch screen. This makes scrolling the map display much easier than the more common joysticks and rockers. The booty for finding the cache containers (which were small Pelican cases, by the way) was a choice of new products from a number of companies. More on these later.
