neal's blog

Some people never learn.

Remember last winter when The Enthusiast Group (publishers of YourClimbing) sent Yann and me to Salt Lake City to check out the Outdoor Retailer Winter Show?

Well, not only are they sending us again, but the folks who run the show are actually letting us back in. Outdoor Retailer Summer Show, here we come!

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Neal: "So...isn't this supposed to be top-roped?"

Belayer: "Nope."

Neal: "Um. Okay."

And thus began my first climbing competition route. A route I was expecting to be an easy 5.9 or 5.10 toprope, but was actually a 5.11 lead route. And hey - I actually on-sighted it! But since it took everything out of me...it thus became the last route I would complete that day. I don't think I got above the second or third clip on the ensuing, increasing-in-difficulty three routes.

However, despite my singular send, I ended up winning my division! What division is that? The division no one else signed up for! Woo hoo! That accomplishment ranks right up there with the national ranking I received in downhill ski racing...as a four year old.

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I have to buy larger (and hence more expensive) cars. I have to pay extra if I don't want to fly with my knees at my ears. I need to special order (and pay more money for) my pants. I had to develop a sixth sense about doorway heights - the hard way. My back is permanently wrecked from washing dishes and preparing food at countertops two feet below what I need them to be.

Sure, I never had to worry about the height requirements at amusement parks or getting picked first for basketball in gym class. Plus, people are usually pretty cool about awarding me shotgun even if they called it first. I'm aware there are more pluses than minuses to being tall; I've done the math. But I'm also aware that this world was built by average-heighted people.

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Does my harness make me look fat?

Why else would the Mighty Powers That Be (Jill at the Boulder Rock Club and my boss Steve) get me into the USA Climbing Regional Championship in Boulder, Colorado, hence forcing my progressively sedentary butt back into the fold? YourClimbing.com is unlocking the handcuffs from my desk and entering me into my FIRST EVER climbing competition.

I feel embarrassed to write this...but I haven't climbed regularly since last summer. Wait, before you crucify me, call me a hypocrite ("he edits a climbing site and doesn't even climb?") and throw a pox on my family, here are my reasons:

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Hey kids!

Finally - we've got all the product previews from the Outdoor Retailer Show finished. Click here to see short video features highlighting the coolest gear Yann and I found. You can see why it was almost torture being there: all that cool stuff, and we couldn't have any of it.

Most of this stuff is coming out soon, if it's not already!

Enjoy...

I'm not sure if this makes any sense at all, but last weekend at the 2007 Outdoor Retailer was the longest blur of a weekend I've experienced in awhile. It feels like just hours ago I was packing for the trip, but yet reflecting on the weekend's humongous amount of tomfoolery finds me thinking it was three times as long as it actually was.

I've never seen so much outdoor gear and so many outdoor-loving people in one centralized place. It was bordering on ironic how many outdoor-related people and events were taking place in what was essentially a sealed off bunker flooded with fluorescent lights.

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Their products may be pricey, they might be the target of some resentment among their peers, and one can get the sense that they're a little too into themselves...but you've got to admit - they've got balls.

At the super-secret media-only Patagonia press conference at the 2007 Outdoor Retailer, president and CEO Casey Sheahan announced that the Ventura, California-based company would launch a bold advancement to their clothes recycling program. They've been offering to recycle consumers' old and no longer used Patagonia gear for years, and now they're taking a step further and really stepping on others' toes. They will now be accepting ANY old Polartec garment, not just their own, for their recycling program. If you've got a North Face, Cloudveil, Arc'teryx, or any other company's gear that has Polartec, they want it, and they're going to turn it back into Patagonia gear.

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Green is king here at the 2007 Outdoor Retailer.

THE theme of this year's show is the number of outdoor manufacturers, from the ma and pop canteen makers to the corporations outfitting elite athletes, is sustainability. From carbon-neutral travel to 100% sustainable production, green is the key word. There are seminars, there are demonstrations, there is green beer (mmmm)...everyone is on the green train. It's not just Patagonia, Timberland and the like focusing on eco-friendly commerce anymore- a slew of companies are initiating a fundamental shift in industry mandates.

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To quote the opening line of Van Halen's Hot for Teacher: "Uh, WOW, man."

Yann and I finally landed in a foggy Salt Lake City (the captain couldn't see the runway so he put it on "auto-pilot" - good times) and found our way to the motherland: the Outdoor Retailer Show. I'm currently in the Press Room trying to keep my HEAD FROM EXPLODING!

THIS PLACE IS NUTS!

Even if you're just remotely interested in anything that has to do with outdoor sports, you can't walk ten feet without being open-mouth mesmerized by a blitzkrieg of cool new toys that you just have to have. Unreal. Even if you didn't stop at any booths, you couldn't walk through the place in a single day. It's like an endless underground lair of adult toy temptation.

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Is wearing a North Face jacket to the Outdoor Retailer like wearing a concert t-shirt TO the concert? Am I that guy?

The show is one day away and I've got nothing to wear. As an impartial reporter looking to get the scoop on all the haps in SLC, I'm in a bind. I'm thinking that if I'm not in the requisite "I'm an outdoorsie guy!" uniform (you know the outfit: Salomon kicks, Prana pants, Patagonia soft shell, maybe a visor - oh yeah), I won't get much convention cred. But if I try too hard to not be that guy...well then I'd look like I was trying too hard. If I wear Mountain Hardware, those guys'll be stoked, but I might alienate Cloudveil. It's a gamble.

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