OUTDOOR RETAILER WINTER MARKET 2012 - PART 1

The Salt Palace in Salt Lake City is filled with new outdoor gear and old friends every January.  With a notebook in hand and an eye for game changers, I made my way through the hall, last week, and have a short list of my favorite things to share.

Paul Parker knows skiing and he knows how boots drive skis.  The new Garmont Cosmos is a lightish weight (3.2 lbs), 4-buckle AT boot that could be the best all-round boot choice on that big wall of boots for 2012.  Paul and his Italian cadre have taken a shell and cuff to a new place.  The benefits of the innovative metal spine design helps the scree descender and the hard-pack pounder with a long, fore-aft, cuff radius.  I wish I was a 27.5 instead of a 30.0 foot and could ski it tomorrow.

I was making some lift runs with pals, at the local hill, and K2 Way Backs were on my feet.  It was good to get back home and ski a foot of new after some rough conditions at the OR Demos, in Utah.  I would usually ski my K2 Side Stash, heavy metal cruise ships, but the Way Backs were the only skis in my box.  Friends said I was skiing "fast and frisky" on those "lightweights" and they did feel solid through the chop.  But, imagine that Way Back construction with 112mm under foot instead of 90 something.  The new Back Drop has width and will have better powder float yet the same holding power as the Way Backs.  Nice double-down from K2.

Kuhl does one of the best jobs in the industry of taking mountain style to the city.  Their Euro-alpine informed look is more refined now and their construction and fit have improved too.  Although I'm partial to the Italian wool sweaters, in the Kuhl rack, this Impakt soft-shell breaks away from the pack of black, soft-shell, look-alike and is a fresh stand-out.

You have to ask yourself "would I ski scarier stuff if I had an air bag pack on"?  Granted it's 5 or 8 Franklins to own an avalanche floatation pack and you might think it would even the odds on a sketchy drop but still it would be the option you don't want to option.  Like a collision air bag, in your car, it's a bad day when it pops.  BCA makes a solid air bag pack in 2 volumes (32 and 22).  They can also direct you to a place to refill your air tank, God forbid.

The Compactor ski pole from, that juggernaut, Black Diamond Equipment brings cool Z-Pole technology to the world of winter sports. The Compactor was originally a trekking pole that has strong ski pole cred, especially if you are a split boarder.  Those weird gummy bear connections are reason enough to buy it.

 Some good guerrilla marketing from Sole foot beds and footwear in the men's room.

Suunto has changed the wrist computer game with the full-feature, GPS navigation Ambit.  It runs around $600 and has a battery life of 15 hours when using the continuous GPS tracking feature.  Of coarse it tells the time and your altitude too but it can also get you home.