Outdoor Retailers Market is hot stuff

Ever doubt the ingenuity of people? Visit, if you can, the upcoming Outdoor Retailers Summer Market opening in the Salt Palace next week, and all doubts will vanish.

To the outdoor junkie, this show can be a permanent fix. Every available space in the Salt Palace is taken up. Every available space is packed with backpacks, kayaks, footwear, head lamps, sleeping bags, tents, apparel, foods, maps and the latest in electronic gadgets.

There will be more than 1,200 brands presented at this year's show. Under those brand names, there could be hundreds of different styles and designs

Take shoes, for example, There will be a couple thousand different shoes on display from such well-known makers as Asolo, Merrell, New Balance, Salomon, La Sportiva, Timberland and Teva. Then there will probably be a dozen or so lesser-known companies such as Bite, Blundstone, Keen and Mion.

Each of the shoemakers will have walls filled with different shoes of varying styles and colors — no two the same. How people can come up with so many styles and color combinations is remarkable.

New shoes include a larger number of shoes just for women, a disc golf line of footwear, shoes with recycled rubber outer soles, an expanded kids collection and shoes that can adapt to every climate and condition.

What always catches my attention are those companies introducing new and revolutionary items.

Garmin, for example, has, for the fitness buff, a new wrist-worn device that will continuously monitor heart rate, speed, distance, pace and calories burned.

Kestrel will introduce a new pocket weather tracker that will monitor wind direction, crosswind, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, heat index, wind chill, wet bulb, dew point, altitude and density altitude. About the only thing is seems not to present is tomorrow's weather forecast.

I always find the Timex booth of interest. The time/distance/heart-rate monitors are truly state-of-the-art and, I've found, far more dependable and stylish than those presented by Polar.

One of the hottest selling markets right now is in the lighting business. New LED lights — flashlights and head lamps — are brighter, lighter and can brighten up an area for hours on end using a single battery.

Essential Gear, for example, offers battery-free lighting. According to the report, owners simply need to wind the integrated charging handle and shine.

Now get this, Pak-Lite promises 1,200 hours of light using a single nine-volt battery. It goes on to say the technology was the idea of a 15-year-old boy.