The Radical Edge Adventure: Outdoor Retailer Recap!

Alright you gear hounds, here's the nitty gritty on what went down in the last week during Outdoor Retailer.
Mike, Mary and myself (Kaylee) headed to Salt Lake City for a fun filled week of meetings with our favorite brands, and searched high and low for new, cool stuff to bring back to you.

Day 1: Demo Day - Solitude Mountain Resort, Utah

We headed up through Big Cottonwood Canyon to get to the beautiful mountain, Solitude. But, as the big bad mother nature had it - she was not giving the best weather. Utah has seen the same dry crummy winter as we in the East has had, and as the locals put it: "it's been firm." So the day we went to demo some outdoor products, it wasn't the most ideal conditions.

Mary and myself decided to check out the "Nordic Challenge" where we could run around and test out some snowshoes while we were at it. So we stopped by and chatted up the nice folks from Easton Mountain Products. We tested out their lightweight running snowshoe, a variation on their Vo2 Racing which was pre-paired with the Salomon SpikeCross (which we already love!), and also their Trail shoe, a variation on their Artica series.

We headed up to the Nordic Center and walked around a groomed trail on a pond, and then decided to really take these for a walk. We headed up through some back trails, up hills, through trees and saw some amazing landscapes in the mean time. Here's what we thought about the shoes:
Race Shoe:
- very lightweight overall. Especially light decking
- nicely tailored in the backs, so you aren't hitting the tails of your shoes together
- We thought that it was a liiiiitle wide in the forefoot for running.
- binding very, very sturdy. No coming off thats for sure.
Trail Shoe:
- The shoe was fairly light, we've tried lighter.
- It came equipped with a climbing bar (similar to what you would find in the Atlas 11 series). It works great! By flipping the bar up while climbing hills, it levels out the shoe and takes a lot of strain off the calves.
- The binding was great. It had a pull system that was colored for ease of use (orange for tight, grey for loose). It came in a two part tightening (front & back)
- Good shoe, but overall a little bulky and for the MSRP, it was a little steep for a trail shoe.

Sorry, we were unable to take photos of unreleased products without a media pass! You can kinda check out the race shoes on Mary in the photo.

After checking out the snowshoes, we headed around the grounds to browse the products. One thing we were particularly intrigued by was something called Instafire.

photo taken by media at OR.

Instafire is made out of recycled wood, compressed minerals and parrafin wax; so no harsh chemicals are used in making the product. Its perfectly safe to store in your pack next to your Holy Crap Cereal. These little babies can burn anywhere. They had it burning on snow, in a bowl of water, and in a metal bin. It makes a scorching heat (up to 1000 degrees) that you can actually cook food on it! It also burns very, very slowly, so you don't need to use a lot to keep warm!

Ruffwear also made a big bark this week. Things like the "Approach Pack" & the "Palisades Pack" were the must have for fashionable pups. Like Shazam, here. Ruffwear is an excellent brand that is made for active dogs, by active dogs....no wait, made for active dogs by active dog owners.
They have everything from joring systems, to minty toys and float coats. Just stop by the shop and have a look at their amazing stuff, for your gear doggy.