Like all Outdoor Retailer shows I ended the day exhausted with many miles on my feet.
Today was a day of meetings for backpackgeartest.org. In fact, I was so packed with meetings I had little opportunity to cruise the show and explore the cool new gadgets other than the ones I was shown in the appointments. However, I did get myself in front of a few things I wanted to mention here.
First up is the PolarMax cotton baselayers. These are made from a treated cotton designed to wick moisture from the body just like a synthetic. We’ve been told for years that cotton kills – what makes these so different? We’ll have to look forward to some reviews and find out.
One of the more interesting things I saw today was the new Steripen Freedom, available this summer. It is a 2.6 oz UV water purifier which will treat 30L of water on one charge of its lithium ion battery. They also reworked the water sensing technology on the Adventurer. I’m looking forward to trying out these new and improved SteriPens.

In between appointments I swung by the Innate booth. Innate started as a stainless steel water bottle company but has expanded their line into other products. The most interesting thing they are doing is using the scraps from other manufacturers to make new products. Instead of going into the incinerator, scraps from the manufacturing of items like Therm-a-rest mattresses are now being made into stuffsacks and other related products. In fact, I saw items in the Innate booth that matched fabric on the new Therm-a-rest NeoAirs (more to come on those in the coming days).
Keen has some awesome footwear hitting the shelves right now. A lightweight hiker called the Tryon caught my eye with its unique sole and lightweight mesh upper. Definitely something that could be useful for my style of travel in the Sierra. They also had some awesome dogs performing fun frisbee stunts. Naturally I took a picture of the dogs but not the shoes.

Lastly, I ended up with these sick Ryders Tweaker SL sunglasses. Bright pink is quite fetching on me, don’t you think? With full coverage and a nice secure fit they should be nice for running, I hope. Looking forward to trying them out.

I spotted tons of cool stuff today and just didn’t have the time to stop and check it out. Even though I spend all day viewing awesome new gear, I always feel like there is so much I miss. I’m definitely looking forward to catching a bunch more tomorrow.