So like I said – with CiloGear’s kind assistance, I made it down to the 2009 Winter Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake. After having driven down Friday morning through the snows of Wyoming and into the amazingly thick smog of an atmospherically inverted Wasatch valley, I stopped by the Salt Palace to pick up my passes from Graham and was then going to go connect with my friend Dean Mathews. Graham and I had been in communication for a year or so, working on different web projects for CiloGear, but this was the first time we’d had a chance to meet. We caught up on things as we walked the aisles of the show and slowly the scale of the place dawned on me and it suddenly became quite surreal. I say surreal as it’s not very often you get a chance to see so many climbing ‘celebrities’ in such a short time span. Dean Potter was walking around the show both days we were there, but we never really crossed paths, other than a quick shot with the iPhone. Shortly after seeing Mr. Potter for the first time though, I found myself in line to meet Royal Robbins and his wife Liz, both of whom graciously autographed a photo for my sister Maija and I. Then just a few moments later, we ran into Steve House. Graham introduced us, which was pretty cool. Steve’s one of those climbers I’ve enjoyed following for the last few years and I appreciate his outlook and approach to climbing and all that being a sponsored climber entails. He was really nice and down to earth, and I was wishing I’d had a business card on me to pass along.

I left Graham to his booth after meeting the other CiloGear folks, and then called Dean. He was close by, so we decided to bag that evening’s plans of heading up into the drizzle and slush and walked around for a few hours checking things out before heading back to Herriman and dinner at home.

The next morning before heading back to the show we climbed on the garage wall for a bit and then stopped at a copy shop and made up a handful of postcards to hand out along with my business cards. Nothing spectacular, but hopefully those who ended up with them will hang onto them for at least a few days before throwing ‘em away. Next time I’ll have to come a bit better prepared, but I think they did the trick for this weekend. I talked to quite a few people – mostly small business owners with new products and really basic marketing materials who just looked like they could use some help and got a good number of positive responses. The size of the place made it easy to wander, and after eating some lunch we kept on trolling through the rows and rows of stuff – shoes, outerwear, skis, socks, underwear, stoves, snowball-chuckers – you name it and it was represented. Lots of stickers, a few goodies – a few products noted and tucked away for birthday and Father’s Day lists – and we were outta there. On our way to the exit, we stopped by the bouldering wall where we’d dropped a business card into a ski boot earlier in the afternoon, and realized it was time for the drawing.

“And the winner of the pair of Scarpa climbing shoes is…

Seth…

Neilson!”

So there you go – there will be at least one good thing coming out of those cards, even if I don’t end up getting any business out of the trip… but I’m feeling pretty optimistic. It was nice to go hang out with the Mathew’s for a bit and get a little wall time in, and it was inspiring to see what’s new in the industry and generate a little hope for cool projects this year.