Articles (2020)

The 2006 edition of the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market may have closed its doors for the night (their is still one day to go), but we thought you might be interested in knowing something about the chaos that we have been in the midst of for the past few days and will be for just a little bit longer. When the Salt Palace closes for the night some go to their hotels to sleep, some go to party, some to play, and some – like us – to write. The chaos of the show certainly envelops us 24 / 7 and I imagine it manages to do pretty much the same in one way or another for all the other attendees too.

The show is composed of over 950 exhibitors showing off their wares ranging from the cottage-industry size companies hoping to grow to the longtime bigwigs who have been around for decades. They spread themselves out across over 400,000 square feet of floor space and for 4 days countless thousands of people try to absorb it all. Does it sound daunting yet? If not remember that most companies have many things they eagerly want to tell you about and what they think is truly great may well be different from what you think is great. Add to this the fact that the booths though laid out in seemingly neat rows can still lead even the most careful navigator astray as he or she is bombarded from all directions by sights, sounds, and smells. And last, but hardly least, keep in mind that a lot of what you need to do is scheduled in advance and that means you had best keep to your schedule as best as you can even though sometimes that may mean hustling from a booth at one end of the show all the way to a booth in a far pavilion in a distant corner nestled amongst dozens of other booths with just minutes for time to get a bite to eat, or go to the bathroom, let alone take a break in the rejuvenation room.

Now someone is no doubt saying that some of this could surely be combatted with good scheduling care. That’s true to a degree, but even the best schedules break down through no fault of anyone. And what happens when you come across what looks like a gem of a product that you had not expected? You stop for it, of course. Not everything is done by schedule and that is part and parcel of the madness that is OR.

The show is exhilarating and overwhelming. You are in a prime position to see what is developing in the latest gear and what companies think people want. You learn about new technologies being employed and can see how an idea spreads like a virus through the industry. But you also see huge amounts of chaff. Then their is the personal interplay between everyone at the show. It is especially fun to watch first-time attendees come to the show and then just dive in with great gusto. They, and I am including BackpackingLight staff editors , remind us just how much fun the show can be even when at times your primary feeling is one of extreme exhaustion.

The Outdoor Retailer shows are grand, frenetic, full of pomp and circumstance sometimes signifying nothing, full of new things to see that could well change our experience of the outdoors for the better, and an experience for all it’s trials that is not to be missed. I keep coming back and who knows if I come back enough perhaps I’ll even learn where the food court is one day. But until then I, along with all the other staffers who come, will continue to seek out what is the best and most interesting at future Outdoor Retailer shows.

Overview

Sleeping Bags continue to evolve this year. It seems everyone now has "lightweight" products in their line. Some manufacturers’ idea of lightweight would be laughed at by most Backpackinglight readers, but still, even mainstream companies like Lafuma now have lighter bags, and at a lower price than the premium niche-market lightweight products available in the past.

This year also sees increased adoption of technologies like laminated insulation. First introduced decades ago in heavyweight bags by Wiggy’s, welding or laminating the insulation to the shell and/or liner of a bag simplifies construction, and eliminates the need for quilting, scrim, and baffles to stabilize the insulation. The North Face, Marmot, and Mountain Hardwear now have lightweight bags with this construction.

Several new bags save weight through innovative features and new materials. New proprietary synthetic insulations, as well as widely available Climashield are now appearing. A new non-calendered, down-proof shell material also debuts in a Montbell bag.

Equinox Ltd. is perhaps best known among ultralight backpackers for their numerous products made from silnylon. They continue to be resourceful with the introduction of a 6.1 ounce daypack, a 1.6 ounce tote bag, a 4.9 ounce duffle, and a 4.8 ounce fanny pack. All are nicely designed, well constructed, and very compactable.

More and more people are trying hammock camping. Hammock camping, when possible, certainly does provide some unique advantages other ground-based camping, chief among them being comfort.

The options for the person interested in this form of shelter continue to expand. Eagle Nest Outfitters based out of Asheville, North Carolina has several hammock designs that with the addition of an appropriate ultralight tarp (they sell a 12.5 foot by 9 foot rainfly that weighs 22 ounces) the inventive camper could design a personalized system that is very light and flexible.

St. Moritz has been crafting fine watches for some time. At the 2005 summer Outdoor Retailer Show we reported on their stylish analog altimeter watch. This time they had three watches that caught our eye and two of them in particular really piqued this author’s interest.

Of immediate interest to us are the digital altimeters that will be available in November. For those of people looking for an entry level altimeter with pleasing style and basic features at a very appealing price the Momentum VP-1 will be worth a look. If you want to go all out and need a watch that can survive anything, adds a digital compass, advanced lap recording features, altitude alarms for maximum, average, and low altitudes, as well as the usual barometric pressure tracking, and weather forecasting then the stainless steel Momentum VS-1 with its sapphire crystal is for you.

Finally, for those of us who just can’t wear digital watches all the time and want a watch made of truly modern materials including titanium, a sapphire crystal, and carbon fiber then the Momentum Logic is perhaps the watch we have been waiting for.

MSRP of the VP-1 is $120 (Available November).

Just like horse or dog breeding, the future of this upcoming new backpack from Granite Gear is fairly predictable because it combines the attributes from two winners. The new Meridian Vapor will combine the body of the Nimbus Meridian (being introduced now, but thru-hiker Justin Lichter has put 8,000+ miles on one so far without failure) with the frame of the popular Vapor Trail. The volume will be 3,200 cubic inches.

I have been testing the Nimbus Meridian this spring and summer, and love its adjustability, comfort, and load-carrying ability. I expect the Meridian Vapor to be an equally good performer, with Granite Gear’s traditional comfort, and volume just right for a seasoned thru-hiker.

For 1.2 ounces, one can carry a one liter (33.8 ounces) capacity Platypus Bottle. For 5.5 ounces, you can have a hard-sided one liter Nalgene bottle, the icon of heavyweight backpacking.

And for a seemingly inconsequential premium of 7.3 ounces, you can have a water bottle that … interacts with you?

The HydraCoach, by Sportline, claims to be the world’s first "intelligent" water bottle. In other words, it monitors your water consumption and then gives you feedback about how you’re doing and where you need to be with respect to your hydration level.

The HydraCoach is a 22 ounce capacity bottle with a silicone mouthpiece coupled to a straw, screwtop closure, and nifty on-board computer.

To start the game, you press the SETUP button and input your weight (e.g., for me, 160 lbs). Then, the computer suggests a daily water intake (e.g., half your weight in ounces, or for me, 80 ounces). You can adjust this intake manually, because well, you know, hydration is a personal thing.

Then, you fill up the bottle, press the start button (which starts a 24-hour timer ticking), and start drinking. The on-board computer monitors several variables, including total amount consumed during the day, average hourly consumption rate, elapsed time (so YOU can figure out proper "pacing"), and the amount of percentage of fluid consumed as a fraction of your daily intake "goal" that it calculated.

All this is monitored by a neat little propeller embedded into the straw. The propeller sends its rotation rate to the on-board computer as you drink to calculate fluid consuption volumes.

Not only is this water bottle interactive, but it appears to be motorized. I wondered immediately: is this going to be legal in Wilderness Areas?

And so, I filled up my HydraCoach with water from a dumb(er) bottle (the LEFT bottle in the photo, as if it isn’t already obvious, sheeya!), pressed the START button, and was on my way to an interactive hydration experience.

I immediately took many, many sips from the bottle, then scrolled through the monitoring variables of the on-board computer using the MODE button. Everything was working smoothly: Within 60 seconds, I had already consumed 6 ounces of water, my fluid consuption rate was a healthy 360 ounces per hour (~ 3 gallons per hour, which is about the rate of fuel consumption of a Hummer H3 on a paved highway), and I was already 7.5% on my way to reaching my daily goal!

This felt better than any success towards a New Year’s Resolution on January 2.

That was pretty much the high point of my HydraCoach experience.

I placed my HydraCoach (it sounds better to say my HydraCoach, doesn’t it? After all, this is a more interactive, and thus, more personal, water bottle, right?) into my messenger bag and spent the remainder of the afternoon walking the Salt Palace floor at Outdoor Retailer.

I wanted to give this water bottle a real test, so I walked, and walked hard! I walked everywhere – from Nemo in the 10000 aisle to Toray upstairs in the 80k’s. And then back! Miles of walking. I even walked outside to attempt further dehydration, by exposing myself to outside heat.

I also walked by a number of snack bars and coffee stands.

Where I drank several quarts of Diet Coke and Cappucino. Of course, all that fluid has to go somewhere, so I also made several visits to the restroom en route. Boy was I hydrated!

Then, I remembered why I was walking – and peeing – so much – I was testing a HydraCoach!

I pulled the bottle out of my messenger bag, several hours later, and it was empty. The bottom of my bag was full of water. All of the water leaked out of the bite valve. The folks at HydraCoach were well aware of several issues that these prototype bottles possessed and warned the informant who picked up our media sample not to have us write about them. This wasn’t one of them.

Of course, I was mad because all this water was just unnecessary pack (messenger bag) weight, which is a big deal when you need to save your weight for the far more valuable marketing brochures from all these companies.

So I decided to interact with the on-board computer.

It seems that I didn’t drink much water today. Nothing had changed, except my lack of progress towards my goals: the newly calculated metrics suggested by the computer sent me into a depressed state.

Just like a failed New Year’s Resolution.

So, I started over, determined to change my bad habits. I swore off Diet Coke and coffee, and pressed the RESET button.

I filled my HydraCoach again and drank a bottle full of water before stuffing it back in my bag, empty, so it wouldn’t leak everywhere again.

In other words, I tanked up.

When I reached the next drinking fountain, I pulled out the empty water bottle, and tanked up again. I drank the whole bottle as I watched the on-board computer boost my ego.

Not only was I having a better interactive hydration experience, I was applying lightweight backpacking techniques by drinking only at known pure water sources.

In fact, I had them all marked on my exhibitor map.

Then disaster struck.

When I reached my third water source (a snack bar at the NE corner of the Salt Palace), I unscrewed the cap, got dizzy (for reasons certainly unrelated to hydration levels), lost my balance, and my brain sent signals to my hand that caused me to drop the bottle. Pieces went flying everywhere.

I was frantic. I felt like I’d dropped my personal trainer. I gathered the pieces and inspected them. Nothing was broken! Boy, was I relieved.

Then, I was showing the snack bar attendant my new HydraCoach, and was just about to show her how well I’d been hydrating myself throughout the day by scrolling through the on-board computer’s various performance monitoring modes.

Everything was zeroed. No progress. Nothing. Nada. My legitimacy, in the eyes of the snack bar lady, was now seriously jeopardized.

The onboard computer had reset itself during the fall.

I can’t imagine how I’d have felt if I’d dropped this bottle on the trail. My Coach all of a sudden felt a bit too fragile for backcountry use.

Of course, it’s too heavy as well. And not quite smart enough.

And certainly not interactive enough. What I’d really like to have seen is an alarm reminding me to drink water. Better yet, a feminine voice encouraging me, "Time to drink, you champ (wink)" would have been really swell.

But I don’t know if they can figure out how to get on board computers to wink yet.

We stopped by the Manzella booth and asked them to show us the perfect glove for ultralight backpacking in windy and showery conditions. After looking at a few gloves for SWAT teams, etc., which didn’t quite hit the mark, they came up with their Silkweight Windblocker gloves. At only 1.6 ounces per pair in size large for gloves that combine wind and water resistance with a good degree of warmth and durability, these gloves appear to have great potential for summertime ultralight backpacking.

Kelty is no stranger to lightweight backpacks, with their modular (and expensive) Cloud and Vapor packs made of Spectra fabric, and their less expensive Flight version made of Dyneema Gridstop. We visited Kelty looking for new affordable lightweight backpacks and were not disappointed. Kelty’s new Lightweight series backpacks are full-featured, yet weigh no more than some popular lightweight packs you are quite familiar with.

The line consists of three packs: the Soar at 5,200 cubic inches and 4 pounds, the Agile at 4,500 cubic inches and 3 pounds 13 ounces, and the Nimble at 3,500 cubic inches and 3 pounds 8 ounces. For comparison, the popular 3,800 cubic inch Osprey Aether 60 now weighs just over 4 pounds.

All three packs are full-featured with lightweight durable fabrics, adjustable aluminum stays, HDPE framesheet, well padded shoulder straps and hipbelt, wicking backpanel, six outside pockets, and more. Overall, the new Kelty lightweight packs are impressive and definitely worth taking a look at.

We did an extended dispatch on this innovative system from the winter 2006 OR, so you can find more details there.

The beauty of the Kahtoola Snow Travel System, from a lightweight standpoint is:

• It is very versatile and allows you to adjust your footwear/traction system to the conditions
• It allows you can wear lightwight trail running shoes to reduce weight on your feet
• The flight overboot keeps your feet warm and dry, and will readily fit into a snow camping system
• Overall system weight is minimized

While the Kahtoola Snow Travel System is not necessarily cheap, it definitely stimilulates our interest because of its lightweight and versatility.

It’s been about a year since ultra-breathable eVENT fabric was pulled from US and Canadian shelter market. It didn’t meet fire retardant standards for a “dwelling.” This is a shame. We at BPL felt it was the clear breathability performance leader for a shelter fabric. Since eVENT was pulled, manufacturers of high-end single walled tents have been searching for a replacement fabric with similar breathability (or finding ways to market a suspiciously similar fabric but not branded as eVENT).

NEMO claims to have found an eVENT replacement from fabric manufacturer Itochu. Brendan Condit of NEMO says that “independent lab tests confirm the Itochu fabric has similar breathability (just a few percent lower Water Vapor Transmission Rate) than eVENT and is much easier to seam seal.” At the booth he showed us a half page synopsis of the test results, but no lab was given nor was the test method specified. NEMO said they would forward the test method and detailed lab results to us. Until then, we have no way to substantiate their claim of breathability in league with eVENT.

Even so, the Itochu fabric is probably quite breathable and a good choice for a single-walled waterproof breathable fabric. NEMO will use it for their GoGo 1-person Bivy, Hypo EX 2-person tent, and Morpho AR 2-3 person tent.